4 Detroit Lions who should play more coming out of the bye week
At 6-2 and with a favorable-looking schedule coming, the Detroit Lions are in a nice spot. There are certainly some areas to improve on, but as could be expected a laundry list of injuries is as short as its been all season coming out of the week off.
Some see the Lions having a path to the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs, and it's hard to argue with the sentiment. As long as they take care of business against teams that aren't as good as they are, with few if any hiccups (see Christmas Eve against the Carolina Panthers last year), a home playoff game is the baseline expectation.
The bye week was an opportunity for the Lions' coaching staff to self-evaluate, and see where things can be changed with an eye on improvement. Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson strongly hinted at a change that's on his radar, and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn noted some critical areas his unit has to be better in.
Some of that honing, fixing and improvement can naturally shift toward adjustments to snap allotment. As in, who plays and who doesn't, how much someone plays, etc. There's certainly a line to toe, so as to keep players fresh and avoid injuries based on overwork, but playing time allocation is an ongoing evaluation process regardless of having a week without a game.
With the bye week as an unabated evaluation time, these four players should play more for the Lions down the stretch this season.