Detroit Lions training camp stock report: Rookie highs and lows

With the first fully open practice in the books, it's time to take stock of the roster and look at who has improved their chances of making the final roster, earning a starting job, or making a bigger impact. Likewise, we'll be looking at those whose stock took a hit for how they played Monday. As we take a look, please note that some of the guys who did well today won't make the roster. Similarly, some of the guys who struggled could still turn it around. It's a busy league and practice is only a glimpse of whether these guys will make it or not come game day, not a complete picture.

Stock Up: Jay Lee

The fan favorite undrafted free agent out of Baylor had a couple of great grabs today. Notably, he caught two long bombs where he won in different ways. On the first, he made a double move against Alex Carter who didn't bite but kept with him. Lee turned on the jets, though, and left Carter in his dust with pure speed. Next, he ran another double move, this time against Adairius Barnes, and ran the route so well that Barnes lost more than ten yards before Lee caught the long touchdown. It's a limited role that Lee can have in the offense but a useful one.

Stock Down: Jace Billingsley

Despite having the best fan made shirt in training camp worn by yours truly, this year's Name Bracket Champ had about as bad of a day as you can have as a receiver. He didn't make any impressive plays and consistently put the ball on the dirt. Jake Rudock didn't do him any favors with off-target throws, but two of the three drops I noted were 100 percent on the rookie receiver. Andrew Peacock had a similarly bad showing in a previous training camp but managed to turn it around by the time the preseason began. Maybe Billingsley can turn it around?

Stock Up: Quinshad Davis

Rounding out the undrafted receivers is former Tar Heel Quinshad Davis. Davis has been getting a ton of hype over the past few days of camp, and he continued to show out catching everything thrown his way. The largest receiver on the field had the best catch of the day on a deep in-route that was perfectly run in tight coverage, boxing out his defensive back for a catch and long gain. Anquan Boldin would run the same play in the opposite direction a few plays later and it looked almost identical how it was played by the long time veteran.

Stock Down: Jeremy Kerley

Once upon a time, Jeremy Kerley was almost a lock for this roster. Now, I'm not sure he sees the final preseason game. The former Jet dropped some passes in previous practices, and while I didn't see any today, I did note that he slipped hard on a comeback route and let the pass get batted away by Johnson Bademosi. Bademosi was then lectured about not taking the football away, and I'm certain a more savvy corner would have a pick in that situation.

Stock Up: Cole Wick

The hype is real, folks, and it's not just for catching passes. Sure, Wick did plenty of that, though all were on short and easy routes that were elementary. More importantly, given the present roster, Wick looked great in blocking drills and showed both power and balance the other tight ends didn't show (Eric Ebron did not participate in these drills, instead working with the receivers). Wick did have one pass that would have went down as a drop, but I note that it was a bad pass from Rudock and would have been a difficult grab to make.

Stock down: Jake Rudock

If you've noticed a trend so far, it's that Jake Rudock gets mentioned on bad passes. The rookie from Michigan looked really bad in camp, and there was very little to redeem the bad passes. Like his time at Iowa, anything outside of 10 yards from scrimmage was off target, forcing his receivers to adjust. He was better on shorter passes and seemed comfortable throwing quick slants ahead of his receivers. If you had hopes he would beat out Dan Orlovsky for the No. 2 QB position, you will probably be disappointed. It would take an incredible amount of improvement for that to even be a discussion worth having.

Stock Up: Eric Ebron

I know I'm not the first to mention it, but Ebron has looked amazing in camp so far. He had no drops that I saw, and the third year tight end made two incredible catches that were highlight worthy. One in particular was high and away from his body, thrown by Dan Orlovsky, but Ebron went way up and caught it with one hand. What's different about this type of catch, which he's made in previous camps, is that he didn't bobble the pass and then bring it into his body, but rather caught it clean in one hand, soft. When Boldin was signed, there were some that thought Ebron would be hurt the most. While that might be true in a couple of situations, I don't see Ebron losing a whole lot of production if he continues to play as he has been.

Stock Down: Jimmy Landes

If you're a rookie long snapper, there are going to be certain expectations. No, we shouldn't expect him to immediately show up Don Muhlbach, one of the best long snappers in football, but it's a fair expectation that the ball doesn't hit the ground. Maybe it's off target a bit (it was), maybe the velocity isn't quite there yet (it wasn't), but don't let the ball hit the ground. For the second practice in a row, that happened. Landes struggled with accuracy early in practice, but by the end was routinely hitting Muhlbach on the longer snaps (punts), but he continued to struggle when snapping to Sam Martin for kicks, which is a lower and shorter snap.

Stock Up: Raphael Bush

Again starting at strong safety, what pushes Bush in the stock up category is that he pretty much exclusively started with the 1s at strong safety. Tavon Wilson came in for some plays as the big nickel, but Bush was always playing the starting role. For as big of a competition as this was billed, I saw little actual competing from Wilson or Miles Killebrew. Speaking of Killebrew...

Stock Down: Miles Killebrew

It's time to temper our expectations of Miles Killebrew. I'm as big a fan of the rookie from Southern Utah as anyone, but after watching him up close today, I think it's pretty safe to say that any expectation of him making an impact early would be premature. As a rookie from a small school, there is going to be a learning period, and Killebrew looked out of sync all day in both individual and team drills. Later, in 11-on-11 drills, it was Tavon Wilson who filled in as the big nickel, the role many thought Killebrew was drafted for. I still have high hopes for Miles Killebrew, as I think everyone should, but I doubt the rookie sees the football field on defense in 2016 barring injury.

Quick Hits

Stock Up

Michael Burton - Was a beast as a blocker and a big part of team drills. Expect to see him more in 2016.
Anquan Boldin - Didn't drop a pass, even when they were off target and difficult.
Joe Dahl - Smooth and athletic, his movement skills in space will be exciting to watch if he develops.
Gabe Ikard - Continued to share time with first team, a trend that just keeps going.
Brandon Copeland - Didn't see him play much, but had some reps with first team.
Johnson Bademosi - He was up and down, but notably played a ton of reps as outside corner.  Getting a long look.
Caraun Reid - Reid took over at first team with Haloti Ngata out for unknown reasons.
Quandre Diggs - Looked great every time he saw the field.
TJ Jones - Two amazing catches, one diving catch along the sidelines and another in traffic.
Antwione Williams - I didn't see him much, but the rookie looked natural in coverage drills, moved well.
Tavon Wilson - First team reps in nickel means he's probably the third safety right now.

Stock Down

Adairius Barnes - Looked terrible in almost every rep I watched, has a long way to go.
Orson Charles - Though he had one great catch, looked very bad in blocking drills and most passing reps.
Stefan Charles - Caraun Reid took first team reps over Charles, who failed to make an impression when he played.
Alex Carter - Carter had several very good reps, but seemed to make a bad one to counter those immediately after.
Graham Glasgow - The only time Glasgow saw the first team was during kicking drills. 
Khaseem Greene - Failed to make much of an impression, going to have to do so in a crowded position like LB.
Keith Lewis - Didn't make much impact, but had one of the worst blown coverages of the whole day.
Kyle Van Noy - His day was mostly clean, but had an awful rep early where he was decleated by a blocker.
Darrin Walls - Much time was spent watching defensive backs today, never saw Walls do a thing.
Ian Wells - Not as bad as Barnes, but not far behind him either.
Dwayne Washington - He had one nice rep while blocking, but received very little work otherwise.
George Winn - Winn had some really bad plays early in drills, but team gave him a lot of reps to work with.