When the Detroit Lions decided to not hold a joint practice this year after suffering so many key injuries in 2025, it came as a relief to Lions fans.
Tired of seeing players go down with injury after injury, it was nice to see that Detroit would be steering clear of any activity that could threaten their suddenly older core. Lighter training camp demands and no joint practices keep injuries, at least, to some more controllable levels. They're still happening, but in freaky ways - that's just unfortunately the Lions' luck.
Still, its begun to seem like an even greater decision to have not chosen to participate in any joint practices this season with just how many ridiculous brawls keep breaking out in them, putting players at risk of unnecessary injury before the preseason and the regular season. If you're not following the New York Jets-Tampa Bay Buccaneers WWE saga this week, you should.
Lions' decision to not hold joint practice looks better everyday
Detroit avoided some unwanted attention and risk to the health of their roster by opting out of this common practice, while we're witnessing scrap after scrap take place at just the Jets-Buccaneers joint practices alone.
Last year, a non-injury related story line to come out of the teams' joint practice with the Miami Dolphins had to do with how electric their offense looked. It seemed like an excellent sign of things to come under then-offensive coordinator John Morton, and also for their defense. Their D had been shutting off the Lions' water consistently before their Dolphins practice, and suddenly the floodgates opened.
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Of course, none of that really mattered as we entered the 2025 regular season. Detroit's offense was perfectly functional, but nowhere near as explosive as they'd seemed to be in that joint practice. And, we already know what happened with their defense.
And, the Lions lost that preseason game against the Dolphins.
The Lions are now headed into their first preseason contest on Thursday with little fanfare, and that's an excellent pro to not having had a joint practice this year. They can just go in with their game plan for specific backups and positional groups, and not have to worry about any raised expectations thanks to any reports from the previous few days.
The Jets and Buccaneers, on the other hand, will be sure to have a lot of extra eyes on a meaningless preseason game thanks to how intense their joint practice was this week.
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