u/New-Negotiation-4176

Dan Campbell was asked during last night's media session if the lack of a joint team practice hurt the level of completion and preparation: “Yeah. Well, I think when you – I feel really good about that with where we're at right now. I think what you get is you do get different types of players, different skillsets, very good players. Like Houston, for example, man, you got (Texans EDGE) Will Anderson coming in here. That's awesome. That's a different guy who's an elite player. But, I'm also like (Penei) Sewell and Hutch go against each other every day. I mean, tell me what's going to be better. I mean, you're just talking about the competition of it and those guys working their craft against each other. Alim McNeill over there. (Tate) Ratledge is an up and coming player. You have got (Jahmyr Gibbs) Jah out of the backfield, you’ve got to cover Jack Campbell at MIKE, pressure, coverage, all these things, man. St. Brown, (Jameson Williams) Jamo. I think we've got pretty good competition here. And for this year, I like what we're doing.”

 Dan Campbell was asked if there is a certain point at training camp when the coaches expect players to meet expectations: “Yeah, I think myself and the staff – we make that very clear to our players what we expect and where we think they should be and kind of where they stand with the other players to an extent. Because I want to make sure some of these guys know, ‘Look, you're not in right now. You may think you're in, you're not in and this is why you're not in, this is what we need.’ Because it's not fair to them if you don't give it to them. And it doesn't make it easy, but it's the right thing to do. And tell them where they can improve, what they can do, and where they stand. And that's all you can ask for because you may not like it, but you can respect it. So, I think we've got a number of guys growing. I just love the competitiveness of a lot of these young guys we've got. You just feel like there's a lot of these guys that, man, they may have a chance. And if they do, they may belong, but just because of the nature of the way they're wired and how they compete. But we’ve still got time, I mean, we’ve got two weeks here and there's some guys we don't know a lot about. Guys that we like, we think we like, but we don't know. They've been hurt or they've been injured or they haven't been put in a certain situation. So, it's still going.”

Dan Campbell on Ennis Rakestraw: CB Ennis Rakestraw Jr.: “Yeah, he should be good. He should be good.”

On RBs Jabari Small, Jacob Saylors and Kye Robichaux : “Yeah. So, look, Small ought to be back too. Saylors got a little ankle the other day. I don't think it's serious, but it could be a day or two here. (Kye) Robichaux’s the one who got – God bless him, dude. He got a foot. It could be – looks like he may have broke a bone in that foot. And he's been so dang just durable all camp, played his heart out. He's another guy just gives you everything he's got, maximize everything. So, that's kind of what that was for. (Isiah) Pacheco’s still a little bit off – a little bit out, I should say. We don't anticipate him being back this week. So, between that, (Jahmyr) Gibbs got back. We felt like we needed another back here.”

On which injured players will start to return to practice: “Yeah. (EDGE Derrick) Moore will start working back here a little bit. We'll work those guys progressively, get them back every day a little bit more and more, providing no setbacks. So, I think we'll get (Sione) Vaki out there a little bit. Moore's one of them. We talked about Juice (Scruggs.)We'll get Juice back today to where he can work a little bit and hopefully each day he gets more and more reps. Bartch is back. I think D.J. Reed’s going to start working back in. So, we're about to get a lot of guys back here.”

Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell said," Whiteside is on the rise and called him a player “you can’t ignore. Nicknamed 'Ironsides' by Campell, Whiteside has had a strong training camp and has been out there every day, making big plays recording interceptions, TFLs and PBUs.

"Here’s what I love about Ironsides: it is not too big for him,” Campbell said. “He doesn’t care who’s across from him; he will compete, and he’s going to try to use his craft. And he doesn’t go in a shell, and he’s not defeated before the play is even snapped... and I’m already done, and the fear is already there. He is not that way."

Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell said," Whiteside is on the rise and called him a player “you can’t ignore. Nicknamed 'Ironsides' by Campell, Whiteside has had a strong training camp and has been out there every day, making big plays recording interceptions, TFLs and PBUs.

"Here’s what I love about Ironsides: it is not too big for him,” Campbell said. “He doesn’t care who’s across from him; he will compete, and he’s going to try to use his craft. And he doesn’t go in a shell, and he’s not defeated before the play is even snapped... and I’m already done, and the fear is already there. He is not that way."

He opened the press conference saying that Mays broke his wrist in a freak accident on a protection play. "The D-lineman made an arm over move and chopped at it. And it's one of those freak things.”

Seth McLaughlin and Juice Scruggs are next men up. "Juice is dealing with a little bit of an
injury, a soft tissue. So, he won't be out there today. It'll be still a few more days before he's back, but certainly Juice is a candidate. McLaughlin's going to get looks, obviously. He'll probably run mostly with the ones today. (Michael) Niese has done it. And then (OL Tate) Ratledge is going to work. I don't see him doing team, but we’ve got to get him back up to speed with doing a little snapping just in case. So, we have got options. Listen, it's the hand you're dealt and you move on."

Asked about the team missing Mays for an extended period of time. "Well, of course, you hate it. I hate it for him because I felt like he was having a good camp and he had grown so much in our system just since spring. So, in that regard, yeah. And for us too. But, at the same time, there again, there's a reason why we have Juice (Scruggs) here too.

And some of these other guys, and they're going to get a look. And you brought up (Seth) McLaughlin, he's going to get an opportunity. And that's the best way to find out on some of these guys. I mean, that's all you can ask for. It's like, man, it's your shot and let's see where we can go with it.

But, we’ve got options. And look, (Ben) Bartch took some reps yesterday. He's getting a little bit better, I'm talking about guard and we know what (Christian) Mahogany's doing and (Miles) Frazier. And so look, we're going to find the best five. We will find the best five. And we're trying to find that before camp starts. But look, if this goes into the season, it does. But, at some point we will find the best five and where they belong and they'll be ready.”

On if Lions C Cade Mays will miss the regular season: “Oh yeah. This will be a while. I'm not going to give you a timeline. He'll be ready for the playoffs. I do feel good about that.”

Detroit Lions center Cade Mays just went down for a significant period of the season with a wrist injury. Mike Panasiuk-2026 All-UFL Team Center (St. Louis Battlehawks) have your agent contact Detroit. They are in need of a starting center.

During yesterday’s media session, Dan Campbell was asked how the team is preparing for the preseason game and which players will play:

“Yeah I really don't see playing a lot of our guys, we’ll play some of them. We'll play some of our guys that are in these, we’ve got some competitions going on at spots, but you ask about (Lions QB Jared) Goff, I don't see Goff playing. And we'll kind of gauge it as we go here. I think more of mine are the questions will be coming next week, when we start getting into the Washington week, because that was kind of where I always targeted like, alright, this may be where we need to play our guys. That'll be the first one is kind of where I was thinking.”

Drew Petzing was asked what he has seen from the offensive line in padded practices: “Yeah. I mean, you hit on it, we've had two days in pads, so we're starting to be able to evaluate what guys are capable of, where we need to improve, what we do well. I think the always – not shocking thing, but the surprising thing is some of those things that worked before the pads came on in team drills, in one-on-ones, all of a sudden when the pads come on, it's a little bit of a different sport. And so, I have been really pleased with the attitude, the effort, the physicality. There are some execution things and some technique things that we're going to continue to clean up, but I think that's the starting point. If the physicality's not there, the toughness isn't there, the other part doesn't matter. And so, I think we've seen that in two days. And then the other stuff, those details will come as we get through the rest of camp.”

Drew Petzing was asked what he is missing by not having Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs on the field: “I think that working relationship is still there. I mean, we're still communicating, we're still talking through practice reps and different looks and things that we want to do or things that I think he can do at a high level. So if anything, it gives me the opportunity to try to highlight some other opportunities and give other guys the ball in practice and see what else we could do in those events. I think that's a big part of being an offensive coordinator is adapting to who's available, who's out there, how do we move people around, how are we dynamic and difficult to defend? And so that's kind of been my focus here these first couple days.”

Asked about the improvement he's noticed in Tate Ratledge this preseason, Campbell responded:  “Yeah, I love where Tate came back in the spring. Looked good. You could tell he worked all through that time. And then certainly being in a building with us, he looked much more comfortable, more confident. And then he showed up at camp, man, in great shape. I mean, you could just tell, man, he's worked and he's trying to be conscientious. One of the things we talked about for him was obviously consistency, that's when you're a rookie, but the pad level. And it's still, it's up and down, but you can tell he's trying and he wants to do it. And because when he bends, and you have got to bend when you have got Alim McNeill across from you and Tyleik (Williams), those guys low center of gravity and they can get under you and they're quick as heck. And so I mean, that's a blessing to be able to go against Alim every day. You have got to be on it. But man, his attitude is right. You can tell that, man, he came in saying, 'I want to be much better than I was last year. I'm going to clean a lot of this stuff up.' And everything I've seen to this point has been good. I mean, he looks good. I'm glad he's here.”