3 Detroit Lions players who might not make it to the end of the season on the roster

3. WR Donovan Peoples-Jones

Peoples-Jones was the lone acquisition the Lions made at the trade deadline, to the further chagrin of some as the defense has struggled in recent weeks. In four games as a Lion thus far, he has hardly played (23 snaps, seven special teams snaps, zero catches on targets). Getting broadly acclimated is a definite thing for any midseason acquisition, and a wide receiver would rank high on the difficulty scale along that line (new quarterback, new offense, etc.)

Head coach Dan Campbell and wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El both talked about hoping to get Peoples-Jones more involved moving forward this week. Randle El called it a "loaded" wide receiver room the Lions' have.

In terms of finding snaps for Peoples-Jones, Josh Reynolds' decline in production over the last handful of weeks, which may be driven by a lingering injury, makes him ripe to play a little less. Reynolds has not topped 15 yards or two catches in any of the last five games, yet he's still playing 70-plus percent of the snaps most of the time. That's not a call for him to be benched, just to play 5-10 snaps less than he does if he can't be fully effective. With many other players, the Lions would have already at least reduced the snap share for underperformance.

By all accounts, Peoples-Jones has worked hard and done well to learn the Lions' offense on the relative fly. He's been on the team for a little over a month now, so it's coming time to see what he can do with even a little more opportunity.

If the Lions don't want to play Peoples-Jones more over the next couple games, and/or he doesn't dent the stat sheet, he may become ripe to be let go in the coming weeks.