Detroit Lions bubble watch: Final predictions for fringe players on offense

The Detroit Lions offense ended the preseason with a whimper, not a roar. On Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Lions offense—quarterbacked by both Tim Boyle and David Blough—was held scoreless in the first half and didn’t find the end zone until the final minute of the game.

That caused a lot of the drama of the final roster spots on offense to fizzle out. The wide receiver competition was a dud, because no one on the team caught more than three passes or tallied 40 or more yards. Tight ends caught a collective two passes on the night. The offensive line was consistently called for penalties and gave up six quarterback hits to the Steelers.The only position group that really seemed to show up on this side of the ball were the running backs, who continue to make life hard for general manager Brad Holmes.

With cuts coming over the next 30 hours or so, our staff has made their final predictions for the fate of the roster bubble players on offense.

Quarterback

• David Blough — 7 “IN” votes (down 2)
• Tim Boyle — 1 “IN” vote (no change)

After a rough performance from both backups, there is little change to the pecking order. Dan Campbell’s postgame comments seem to doom Boyle’s chances—as it was clear he wasn’t capable of running the first-team offense. While Blough wasn’t much better, he at least finished the game strong.

Blough loses a couple of votes, though, for likely two reasons. One, it was Boyle the Lions entrusted to start the game over Blough. Two, one staffer believes the Lions cut both backups.

Running back

• Craig Reynolds — 8 (down 1)
• Justin Jackson — 6 (up 2)
• Godwin Igwebuike — 3 (down 2)
• Jermar Jefferson — 0 (no change)

After a second straight solid performance, Justin Jackson shoots up bubble watch and is now in prime competition for the RB3/4 spot. He’s proven to be an instinctual, effective runner—as he did in four years with the Chargers. The question that remains is whether he’s capable enough on special teams to dethrone four phaser Godwin Igwebuike. Right now, the majority of the staff believes the answer is yes.

Tight end

• Brock Wright — 9 (no change)
• James Mitchell — 8 votes (no change)
• Shane Zylstra — 7 (up 1)
• Devin Funchess — 0 (no change)

Not much change here, as the Lions tight ends had a quiet night in Pittsburgh. Funchess’ return from injury resulted in just one catch for 4 yards, but he was the only tight end not named T.J. Hockenson to catch a pass on Sunday.

Seems like nearly the entire crew has come around to the idea of keeping four tight ends while Jason Cabinda sits the first four games.

Wide receiver

• Tom Kennedy — 6 (down 3)
• Trinity Benson — 5 (up 4)
• Quintez Cephus — 4 (down 3)
• Maurice Alexander — 0 (down 2)

Even more shifting at wide receiver this week, as few questions were answered about this unit on Sunday. Partially due to poor quarterback play, none of these four receivers had 20 yards against Pittsburgh. Tom Kennedy dropped a touchdown pass. Trinity Benson caught just one of six targets. Quintez Cephus only had one catch—granted it was the team’s sole touchdown. And Maurice Alexander was taken off of kick return duties—which can’t be a great sign when earlier this week Campbell said that Igwebuike was the team’s starting kick returner as of then.

To provide even less clarity, all four of these guys were playing late into the fourth quarter, making it hard to tell what the pecking order is here.

I’m assuming Cephus got the bump up this week simply because he had the fewest votes going into this game, and the crew lost confidence in everyone else.

Offensive tackle

• Matt Nelson — 9 (no change)
• Kendall Lamm — 0 (down 1)
• Dan Skipper — 0 (no change)
• Obinna Eze — 0 (no change)
• Darrin Paulo — 0 (no change)

The staff has converged into believing there is just one reserve offensive tackle worth keeping on the 53-man roster: Matt Nelson. That said, it’s certainly possible the Lions decide to keep another with Nelson missing the last two practices with an injury.

Guard/Center

• Tommy Kraemer — 9 (no change)
• Logan Stenberg — 2 (down 3)
• Kevin Jarvis — 0 (no change)

Even though Stenberg had a solid game against the Steelers, he falls a few spots as decision day looms. Kraemer did not play in the preseason finale—he, too, has been nursing an injury—but he appears safe. If Kraemer and Evan Brown are in, could the Lions justify keeping a third reserve interior offensive lineman? The answer seems to be no.