Monday Notes: Kitna, Others Likely Won't Dress for Preseason Finale

by Sean Yuille on Aug 25, 2008 3:12 AM EDT in Notes Comment 0 comments

First, a couple of reminders: If you're in the official Pride of Detroit Fantasy Football League, don't forget that your draft is at 8 p.m. ET tomorrow. If you're in the overflow league, your draft is at the same time on Wednesday.
Although it would be nice to see the Lions go undefeated this preseason, the coaches are more worried about keeping everyone healthy. With only one game left in the preseason it would be devastating for any player to suffer an injury, and that especially can be said about the starters. Jon Kitna isn't expected to even be in uniform as he already has had a couple mishaps that involved him being kicked. How he managed to get kicked on two separate occasions is beyond me, but it shows that accidents can happen, so I don't want Kitna anywhere but the bench on Thursday.
Assuming Kitna won't play at all against Buffalo, we should expect to see Dan Orlovsky for most of the first half. The Lions need to be careful with him as well considering their depth at QB is already thin, so the hope is that Drew Henson will play quite a bit.

Just how long Orlovsky and Henson will play depends on how much of the offense Henson can learn in the coming days. He only knows six plays right now, so he'll have to study up. My hope is that Henson plays most of the game as Orlovsky really shouldn't be in there more than he has to. An injury to him could really screw the Lions if Kitna were to go down during the first part of the regular season.
Kitna won't be the only starter that doesn't dress for Thursday's game. I wouldn't expect players like Roy Williams and Calvin Johnson to be in uniform at all, and then there are many other starters that will probably see little to no playing time.
All of this talk of not playing the starters is because allowing injuries to potentially happen at this point in the preseason is simply irresponsible. Injuries do happen, and to take that risk in the final preseason game is just dumb.
The Giants know firsthand how bad it feels to watch a star player get injured in the preseason as Pro Bowl defensive end Osi Umenyiora is out for the season due to a torn lateral meniscus. I bet Michael Strahan's phone is exploding right now with calls about him coming out of retirement. Lord knows the Giants need him now more than ever.
Detroit's first opponent of the regular season, the Atlanta Falcons, have named rookie Matt Ryan their starting quarterback.
A select group of Lions fans got to watch part of the Browns game on the sideline.