Lions notes: Detroit Lions among top half of league’s receiving corps

For years, the Detroit Lions had one of the better receiving corps in the NFL. Golden Tate arrived from the Seattle Seahawks to partner Calvin Johnson in the final years of his career. Johnson was instantly replaced by Marvin Jones Jr. and a year of Anquan Boldin, and they and Tate formed a fearsome trio starting in 2016. In 2017 Kenny Golladay arrived and the team had an elite three-deep group of receivers.

The when the Lions dealt Tate to the Philadelphia Eagles midway through last season, a void opened in the offense. The receiving corps felt decimated and needed to be much better in the upcoming season if the team is to succeed this year.

Luckily, the additions of Danny Amendola and Tommylee Lewis this offseason seem to have markedly improved the offense, at least according to SBNation.com’s Christian D’Andrea. He ranked all 32 of the NFL receiving corps, and placed Detroit’s near the center at 13.

While being in the middle is not great, it shows improvement over how bad the Lions receivers were over the second half of last season. Detroit’s receivers room has not reached its previous height, but it is making its way back towards the top.

• Detroit Lions team reporter Tori Petry gave a quick recap of today's OTAs on Twitter:

• Bleacher Report listed what they believe to be the best move made by every team this offseason. Unsurprisingly, the addition of Trey Flowers was chosen for the Lions.

• Pro Football Focus put together a graphic showing, and ranking, the coverage grades for NFC North teams in 2018. Detroit, unfortunately, ranks at the bottom of the division and 29th in the NFL with a grade of 66.8.

• Andy Benoit over at Sports Illustrated put together an “all-slow” team, putting together the best possible roster of players who would be classified as “slow”. Benoit features Lions corner Justin Coleman on the list.

• Lions offensive lineman Taylor Decker and Rick Wagner seem to be having a great time at OTAs, per Decker’s twitter.