Detroit Lions looking forward to finally having starting offensive line together

The Detroit Lions' five starting offensive lineman have not played a snap together in either of the last two seasons, but hopefully that will change this year.

The Detroit Lions are widely regarded to have one of the best offensive lines in the NFL. But since adding Penei Sewell in the 2021 draft, and effectively solidifying the unit, the projected five starters have yet to play a single snap together over the last two seasons.

Left tackle Taylor Decker was sidelined by a hand injury for the first eight games of the 2021 season, and by the time he was back in action center Frank Ragnow was out for the year with turf toe. A back injury in the preseason ultimately sidelined right guard Halapoulivaati Vaitai for all of last season.

Vaitai is set to have competition from Graham Glasgow for the starting job at right guard during training camp. But in a broad sense, the Lions are hoping to have all five projected offensive line starters--including Vaitai--together for the first time this season.

Taylor Decker hoping to have all five Lions starting offensive lineman together for first time this year

Via Ben Raven of MLive, Decker, the longest-tenured Lion and a team leader, is hoping to have all his guys together on the offensive line--finally.

"Hope so. We didn’t have our projected starting offensive line for one game last year,” Decker said. “We had some guys come in and play great and give us some really good games -- or even if they had to go in for a series or two. But as we know, that’s the nature of this -- seems like for two years we’ve been trying to get this projected offensive line on the field together, and I don’t know if it’s happened yet. I don’t think it has. Preseason maybe."

Decker played every snap last season (1,142), and he allowed just four sacks as a key cog in keeping Jared Goff impeccably clean. Ideally, all five guys on the Lions' offensive line will play every snap this season--or at least somewhere close.