Lions Wire

The Lions made some moves after the cutdown date by the way of three new additions.

All of them are young and appear to be healthy based on my initial research.

Brad Holmes also answered many questions during his press conference today. Analysis of that is below.

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THE 3 NEW ADDITIONS TO THE 53-MAN ROSTER

Tyler Lacy, DT – 25yo

• 2024: Played 13 games

• 2023: Minor hip injury. Played 15 games

• 2022 (college): Ankle

Daniel Thomas, S – 27yo

-Very reliable in his career with the caveat that he plays mostly on special teams.

• 2024: Played 15 games

• 2023: Played 15 games

• 2022: Played 15 games

• 2021: Played 16 games

• 2020: Played 10 games

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BRAD HOLMES PRESS CONFERENCE

Regarding cutting roster below 53

The Lions trimmed the roster down to 50 at the cutdown date.

Holmes rightfully was repeatedly grilled by the reporters about this because his answers didn’t fully explain the logic.

“We had 50 make the team. That’s it. I don’t know what else you want me to say….

If we only had 50 that we deemed as the standards of making it, then you have to look elsewhere.”

Does this mean that two years ago when the roster was weaker, they may have only kept 45 players? That logic wouldn’t make any sense.

The team still signed many of their own players to the practice squad like Dan Skipper, Trystan Colon, Jackson Meeks, and Keith Cooper, among others.

Thus, there were many players the Lions felt worthy of keeping on the team.

Why not have them make the initial roster and then waive them as necessary?

Maybe there is a small financial reason to keep some guys off the back of the roster.

Veteran players (like Dan Skipper) have their full-year salary guaranteed if they are on the roster for Week 1.

Another possibility was brought up by a reader on X.

Maybe there is a benefit to waiving/releasing a player during the initial wave versus a subsequent wave.

It seems like there is some aspect of the thought process that Holmes doesn’t want to reveal – which is absolutely his right from either a competitive standpoint or a privacy standpoint.

Holmes statement does seem to tell us how the team feels about the guys on the practice squad – that they were not worthy of making the 53-man roster despite open slots.

Regarding Ahmed Hassanein waiver decision

“There is a good chance he might get healthy before then [injury settlement date + 3 weeks], within those weeks.”

The big health takeaway is that Holmes said Hassanein has a good chance to be healthy before the injury settlement date plus the mandated additional three weeks before he can re-sign with the Lions.

We don’t know the settlement date, so there is still a lot of uncertainty about his return.

But it does sound like Hassanein will be back this season from his pec strain.

Hassanein is basically a free agent at this point, but Holmes sounded very confident that Hassanein would re-sign with the Lions.

If another team offers a higher salary or a 53-man roster spot though, it would seem wise for Hassanein to take it.

Holmes didn’t explain why the Lions chose the waiver route vs protecting Hassanein by putting him on IR-to-return.

Maybe the Lions wanted to keep all 8 of the regular season return slots open just in case.

To clarify the rule, the Lions can put as many players as they want on IR-to-return, but are limited to 8 players actually returning (plus two bonus for the playoffs).

Last season, the Lions used 7 of the 8 IR-returns allowed in the regular season.

They used an 8th return a few days after the season ended on Ennis Rakestraw.

The team still had a bonus two more to use for the playoffs which ended up being unutilized – with the two hopefuls being Aidan Hutchinson and Carlton Davis.