Sunday was a pretty rough day for all Lions fans alike, not only did the team suffer a team loss to the Seattle Seahawks the Lions also lost some pretty notable starters for an extended period of time. Let’s take a look at who you can expect to replace these starters for the time being.
The first injury and the most major was CJ Gardner-Johnson the Lions high profile free agency signing, this came as a surprise to most people watching the game because he did end up finishing the game although it was revealed he had a torn pec. This injury likely puts him out for the season but Dan Campbell has not ruled out a return for CJ just yet. Although this is a massive blow to our secondary it was certainly not the worst position for this to happen to. Tracy Walker, the Lions tackle leader from just a few years ago also happens to play safety. Expect to see a lot more of Tracy Walker playing a lot of free safety with Kerby Joseph sliding over to Strong Safety (if he ends up playing, questionable with a hip injury) also watch out for the rookie Brian Branch to have a lot more impact on this weeks game as he should be playing a lot more in the nickel without CJ.
The next major injury was to the 2022 rookie breakout player James Houston who will miss a big chunk of the season with a fractured ankle. A lot of people overreacted to the severity of this injury at first in my opinion but it does hurt to lose a pass rush specialist when your team does not exactly rush the passer well at all with only one sack in the first two games. The reason I think that a lot of fans overreacted to this injury was because James Houston only played about 20% of the snaps the last two weeks and was only in on pass rush downs and for good reason. Expect to see a lot of Charles Harris on the edge and maybe a mix-in of Levi Onzwurike and John Cominsky sliding out to the edge and attempting to rush the passer. I also expect Aaron Glenn and the defense to blitz a lot more than they usually do this week to force Desmond Ridder to make some errant throws and try to get some pressure because something needs to change with the scheme as of now.
Another injury was to Halapoulivaati Vaitai, he went down with a knee injury in the second half, the second injury to the Lions’ stout offensive line. Graham Glasgow came in for Vaitai and did not do a bad job, a familiar face in Detroit, Glasgow is still a pretty decent player and could definitely start on a few teams this year. The downgrade from Vaitai to Glasgow is not massive so I do not expect it to affect the team so much in the run or pass game.
The last injury was to David Montgomery, the Lions’ workhorse back who will most likely miss a few weeks with a quad injury. Due to this injury, the Lions signed Zonovan “Bam” Knight to the active roster, this is a name to look out for. I do not expect Gibbs to take a lot of carries through the tackles but Knight is a very physical back, Knight ran for 300 yards in seven games for the Jets last year and actually looked very good when he got the start for a couple of games. Cameron Reynolds will also get a few carries but he did not look very explosive or good in the game against the Seahawks so I would hope that Knight would get a chance.
