With both Daunte Culpepper and Drew Stanton suffering injuries, it was pretty obvious that the Lions were going to add some depth to the quarterback position. I figured they were done adding depth after Brooks Bollinger signed with the team, but I was wrong. As it turns out, the Lions claimed quarterback Kevin O'Connell, who was released by the Patriots on Sunday. Since the Lions still have waiver claim priority over every other NFL team, they were awarded O'Connell.
What exactly does this mean for the Lions? Well, I'm not exactly sure. Either the injury to Drew Stanton is more severe than we are being led to believe, or Martin Mayhew is claiming O'Connell for trade bait. As you probably know, Matt Cassel is expected to be out 2-4 weeks with an MCL sprain, though the Chiefs claim he will be back in time for the regular season. Even so, I'm assuming they put in a claim for O'Connell since Scott Pioli is their general manager. At the same time, there is some talk that the Broncos were interested in O'Connell as well. They have some of their own injury problems at the quarterback position, and their coach is former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
This could just be a temporary thing where the Lions want to have a couple backup QBs available for Thursday's preseason finale, or it could mean that they want to get a look at O'Connell just in case Stanton has to go on the IR. Like I said earlier, however, this could just be a move to add some trade bait to the roster in hopes of acquiring a late-round draft pick from a team like the Chiefs or Broncos.