Detroit Lions players reporting to Allen Park Monday

The road to the 2019 NFL season is officially here. Offseason training has begun for the Detroit Lions, as players are expected to report to Allen Park on Monday for Phase 1.

According to league rules, these offseason workouts may only include “strength and conditioning activities” and are completely voluntary for all players. So, yeah, we’re not quite at football yet.

However, there may be some interesting developments we get from this week. First, you have to wonder about the status of Matthew Stafford. It would be completely understandable if Stafford was absent from this week’s conditioning activities considering the recent news that his wife, Kelly, has a brain tumor as is expected to have surgery as soon as this week.

Additionally, we’ll see the offseason progress of players who ended the season with an injury. Kerryon Johnson sounded like he could’ve played toward the end of the season had anything been on the line. Marvin Jones Jr. sounded close, too. But what’s the status of Da’Shawn Hand? Michael Roberts? Jalen Reeves-Maybin? All finished the season on IR with varying levels of severity.

Other burning questions from this offseason—like how will the offense look under new coordinator Darrell Bevell? or how much have Lions players bought into head coach Matt Patricia now?—likely won’t be answered until the team actually goes through some actual football activities.

Organized Team Activities begin May 20 and run through June 13, so we’re close getting to know this 2019 team. Stay tuned!