Lions Camp — Aug 31: Joseph and Branch Out Until Week 5

The Lions placed both of their starting safeties on the reserve/physically-unable-to-perform list at Sunday's cutdown — Kerby Joseph with a knee injury, Brian Branch recovering from what Josh Alper at Pro Football Talk reported as a torn Achilles — and that turns the September secondary from a question into a ruling: neither can play before Week 5 against the Cardinals, per the team's website. Our August 23 episode put the question on this designation as four games or none. The answer came back four, and it came back twice. The Achilles report also explains, after the fact, why Branch's timeline ran longer than Joseph's; our August 23 episode carried timelines for both without a named injury, and the team itself has not confirmed the Achilles in anything we could cite. What's left at the position: Chuck Clark and Avonte Maddox, the two veterans our last episode already had running those spots, with Christian Izien working back from a leg injury, Thomas Harper, and Aamaris Brown — who left Saturday's finale in the fourth quarter with an upper-body injury, per Justin Rogers at the Detroit Football Network. John Whiticar at Pride of Detroit expects the front office to work the waiver wire or free agency at safety. The opener is the Saints, September 13.

The 53 behind that ruling is thin in ways Detroit chose. The roster carries two quarterbacks and four wide receivers, per Tim Twentyman's breakdown at the team's website: Jared Goff and Josh Dobbs, then a receiver room of Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Isaac TeSlaa and Tay Martin. Dobbs settled the backup job with the finale — 15-of-19 for 128 yards and two touchdowns, three scoring drives, per Twentyman — and undrafted rookie Luke Altmyer was waived, with Dave Birkett at the Detroit Free Press reporting Campbell's preference for a veteran in the role. Birkett also reported the expectation that Altmyer returns on the practice squad if he clears waivers — his rookie guarantees were structured at practice-squad compensation — but practice squads cannot form until waivers clear, and nothing has been signed. The third tight end job went to Jackson Meeks, a converted receiver who beat out veteran Tyler Conklin on special-teams value, per Twentyman.

The rest of the ledger, compressed: linebacker Troy Reeder, defensive end Myles Adams, receivers Greg Dortch and Tom Kennedy, defensive tackle Chris Smith, running back Trayveon Williams and tight end Zach Horton were among roughly 35 cuts, per Birkett and Alper. Center Cade Mays (fractured wrist) and edge Payton Turner went to injured reserve and tackle Giovanni Manu to the reserve/non-football-injury list, per Twentyman, while undrafted rookie edge Eric O'Neill made the team, per Whiticar. The announcements landed nearly two hours past the 6pm Sunday deadline, which Nolan Bianchi of the Detroit News speculated came down to the tight turnaround from Saturday's game and to Campbell wanting to tell each cut player in person, per Nathan Dougherty at Heavy. Campbell's own description of the weekend, after the finale: "an exciting time and... also kind of a somber time," per Dougherty at Heavy.

That finale, briefly: Lions 25, Colts 16 in Indianapolis on Saturday, with Detroit outgaining the Colts 356 to 229 and converting 13 of 18 third downs, per Twentyman. Jacob Saylors ran 17 times for 100 yards and made the roster; Trayveon Williams added 57 yards and two one-yard touchdown runs and was released the next day, per Twentyman. Ennis Rakestraw, whose ankle scare filled half a paragraph of our last episode, played and produced six tackles and a diving interception, per Rogers, and made the 53 at cornerback. Kicker Jake Bates missed two extra points, which Christian Booher at Lions On SI flagged as a consistency question despite the leg strength. Besides Brown, two others left the game hurt: running back Jabari Small on a kickoff-return collision and cornerback Ekow Boye-Doe on a tackle attempt, per Rogers.

Now the correction. Our last episode listed Isiah Pacheco among the players who sat against Washington, filed next to Goff and Gibbs with no injury attached. That read is dead. Campbell revealed this week that Pacheco has been dealing with a sprained MCL and now a back injury — "I can't give you anything definitive" on a return date, per MLive.com — and his Week 1 status is uncertain. The better news came earlier in the week: Sam LaPorta returned to practice on Tuesday and is on track for the opener barring a setback, per Maliha Akter at Pro Football Network, with Campbell calling the hip "a little aggravated" and saying the team feels "good long-term about him." And Cedrick Wilson Jr.'s knee — the one injury Campbell declined to minimize after the Washington game, "I'm worried on that one" — ended his season in Detroit: injured reserve Monday, released with an injury settlement Wednesday, per Dougherty at Heavy.

The center picture settled the way the week pointed. Juice Scruggs starts, Tate Ratledge stays the insurance behind him, and rookie Seth McLaughlin entered the concussion protocol during cut week, missed the finale, and still made the 53, per Rogers. Detroit signed center Gus Hartwig on Tuesday for depth, per Pro Football Talk, which also reported linebacker Damone Clark to season-ending injured reserve the same day. Rookie edge Derrick Moore, held out again late in camp, is expected back on the field sometime in the week after rosters were finalized, per MLive.com.

Back in July we previewed Detroit as a team priced at its December strength — a real bounce case attached to a September secondary that amounted to a scheme dare with no proven names — and cut day put a number on the dare: four games minimum, twice over, before either proven name is eligible. The bounce half of the case took one step in each direction — LaPorta came back and is on track for the opener, while Pacheco went from a presumed rest-day scratch to an MCL-and-back question with no date attached. The July read didn't move. It got a designation.

What to watch next: the waiver wire clears and the practice squads form behind it — where this week's roughly 35 cut names land is the next episode's job, and Whiticar's expectation is that Detroit shops at safety while it happens. Beyond that: whether Pacheco practices this week, and whether the safety pairing that meets the Saints on September 13 is still Clark and Maddox once the wire has cleared. We'll check back once the claims and the practice squads are in.

_Data via nflverse._