Predicting the Detroit Lions final roster: Who stays, who goes?

Detroit Lions running backs and quarterbacks to watch

At running back we’ve already established the main rotation with Kerryon Johnson, rookie D’Andre Swift, and thumper Bo Scarbrough doing most of the heavy lifting.

The battle here is for a fourth spot or possibly a fifth spot with veteran Ty Johnson and rookie Jason Huntley who are both speed-backs vying for a role. While Wes Hills is on the roster, it’s not likely that he beats out anyone for the last roster spot or two, even on special teams.

The biggest differences in our minds between Huntley and Johnson is that Huntley is the more accomplished pass-receiver while Ty Johnson flashed some big-play ability and is a returning offensive weapon who offers little as a receiver.

Lastly, the least controversial position, the Detroit Lions will keep two quarterbacks Matthew Stafford and Chase Daniel. Second-year quarterback David Blough made some progress last year but the Detroit Lions are about competing for the division title barring an injury to Stafford.

Blough should be developed on the practice squad and showed good poise for a rookie thrown in to action but he isn’t ready to take the backup job from Daniel this year.

Prediction: We made the hardest decision here. We opted to keep Jason Huntley instead of Ty Johnson as our speed running back because we believe that his ability to function in the slot or in general as a pass receiver is the deciding factor. Ty Johnson could hopefully be kept around on the practice squad since he has less than two years of active roster experience but he’d likely be claimed by someone.

The strength of the top three backs helps alleviate the need to keep another player who is solely a runner. That brings our total of running backs to four and quarterbacks stay at two roster spots. The total number being kept on offense is 24 players.

Combined with our three specialists, the 50 combined offensive and defensive players give us our 53-man roster. There are likely to be some players added or injured during camp which will wreak some havoc on this prediction but if everyone were healthy, this is the way we think we would go right now.