Their Most Improved Group The Detroit Lions DBs

Intro hello and welcome to the JSA Studio I your host as always Nathan and today I'm going to be talking about the Detroit Lions once again we're going to be wrapping up the position breakdowns today by finishing off with the defensive backfield or the DBS once again this is a pre-recorded video so if new information has come to light regarding injuries or potentially players that make the roster I can't change what I said in the past f with the intro done and out of the way there's only one thing left to say and that's to ask you to like comment and subscribe we're going to go ahead and CBs start off with who I think will be the starting cornerbacks these are the players that are going to play outside the numbers generally speaking that's what I mean when I say cornerback now technically people still call Nicholls cornerbacks as well as slot Defenders nickel backs and that all kind of means Corners although sometimes are listed at safeties I don't know it's all real confusing but for me when I'm talking I referring to strictly players on the edges of the defense these are typically the two players furthest away from the center position that is what I mean when I say corner and I think the two starting outside corners are going to be Carlton Davis and Enis ristra I believe ristra right now is is more ready to start and play than tyon Arnold and the general Vibe I've gotten throughout the reportings of early training camp here is that Rik kastra is ahead of tyon Arnold right now which may or may not be a good thing depending upon how you look at it I look at it as a good thing tyon Arnold was somebody who two years ago was playing safety for Alabama okay this is someone very new to the cornerback position he was always more of an upside pick even though he actually had really good technique at Alabama he just doesn't have the nuances of the position down yet and that's the stuff that gets exposed when you transition from college to the NFL more so than the other technical aspects of the game Andis rastra was more of a player that I felt like has a lower ceiling maybe even by a large margin than tyon Arnold but I also thought he could come in and play right away I had a top 50 grade on Rik AAW I believe uh had he ran a little bit better it's possible I would have put him in the top 40 now information I did not know at the time until I heard Brett Coleman talk about it in his Detroit Lions offseason breakdown video was that rastra was actually hurt he was coming off of a hamstring sprain while running at the combine so that 4540 may not have been as indicative of his play speed as it should have been had he been fully healthy and I get that there are a lot of people that talk about 40 yard dashes don't matter and we're moving more towards in-game speed with GPS's and all that sort of stuff but the fact of the matter is is that the 40 yard dash especially for defensive backs correlates with how good you are you don't want to be in the low 43s cuz generally those players aren't very good however you don't want to be in the 45s either so that sort of what I would say 438 to 447 is the ideal area for a cornerback to be in and Arnold and uh to be fair to Andis ristra Arnold was also a little bit below that marker however I think and this is just my rationale right now could definitely change in the future but I think Rik straw had he been healthy would have been in that around that 445 range I don't think tyon Arnold ever would have gotten there however I think it's very likely tyon Arnold ends up being the future of the nickel position for this team not necessarily as an outside cornerback and we'll talk about that a little bit after we do the depth for the corners which we're going to get into right now again I do think Arnold Depth CBs could play on the outside uh same with amaric Robertson I think he's also going to be able to play on the outside if they ask him to do so uh kindell vildor who has gotten a lot of for no real reason he played like a starting caliber corner for the Lions the vast majority of the time he was on the field he had a bad NFC Championship game and it wasn't just that he could have had an interception that probably would have iced the game that bounced off his face mask and then Brandon NAU caught the ball it's not just that he had a bad game that game however I'm very excited to have him as a depth piece assuming he makes the roster because this is someone where when the injuries happen because they're going to happen and they have to shuffle around the secondary a little bit he can come off the bench and give you quality starting caliber minutes or not minutes snaps sorry I was watching the Olympic basketball game right before I sat down to record this by the way what a comeback by Team USA semi-final match beat Serbia even though I like yic glad the US won move on to the gold medal match against France uh anyway getting back to this Steven Gilmore is the sort of last player that came out uh I didn't make you YouTube videos at the time but Steven Gilmore I had a draftable grade on him I had a fifth round grade on him lions got him as a udfa I do think he is an NFL caliber Corner maybe not someone that's going to start or play a whole lot but I do think he is a roster caliber Corner moving on Starting Nickel to the Nickelback position unfortunately Emanuel Mosley has been hurt once again with a season ending pectoral injury which is three straight years now um I I think there's a definitive possibility that Emanuel Mosley has played his last snap in the NFL and I don't want that to be the case because his first injury which happened six or seven games into his last season with the 49ers uh now two seasons ago before that injury he was projected to get maybe even topof the market quarterback money he was getting projected to get $17 199 million a year because he was not even above average he was a good starting Corner in the NFL with inside outside versatility and then he got hurt had to sign the one-year deal with the lions got hurt again Lions brought him back and now he's hurt again and it's horrible you hate to see stuff like this but he's not going to be the starting nickel I do think had he been able to stay healthy he probably would be the starting nickel however that's not what's going to happen so who are the contenders for the starting nickel spot with Emanuel Mosley down ultimately I do think it will be a Nickel Depth Meek Robertson however tyon Arnold and Kil dorsy are likely to be not necessarily in competition with him but the primary backups for the starting nickel which I do think would be a make Robertson and I don't know if it will be tering Arnolds or not it could be they might want to put Robertson on the outside and kick rastra to the bench that is a definitive possibility and then Arnold starts in the slot I could see that happening fairly easily now the Lions also do rotate their cornerbacks which is not something a lot of teams do but the Lions when they had everybody this past season they did rotate their Corners a little bit so I thought Robertson was going to get on the field anyway but now I think he's likely just going to be the starting slot Corner uh on this team with Arnold being the primary backup at both the outside corner position and the nickel position in case one of the two starters gets hurt Kalo dorsy is the emergency we have to throw somebody out there and we don't want to put Brian Branch there because whatever reason we want him to play safety still he's the emergency we're going to throw you in the slot until we can figure something out next week sort of player there he's primarily a special teams player at this point and he's a elite caliber special teams player like the Lions have a lot of really really good special teams players so I think there's a very real possibility lions are going to field an elite special teams unit this year moving on to the Starting Safeties safeties now the two starting safeties are pretty much locked in uh and that is that it's going to be Brian branch and Kirby Joseph now I in all honesty probably would just start Brian branch in the nickel now that Emanuel Mosley is hurt that's probably what I would do however a lot of that is based off of the last six games of this past season including the three playoff games where a Fatu melan fonu was quite legitimately playing like an allpro caliber safety if he can come close to matching that play then I don't know how you can keep him on the bench like it's almost like you have to put Brian Branch back in the nickel in order to get ify Mel and fodu onto the field and and maybe he's not playing at that level anymore maybe that was a flash in the pan because teams didn't know how to take count for him and they were surprised by his range or his ability to Blitz or something like that I don't know those are all definitive possibilities however I think he deserves to start and play based off of what I saw at the end of last season all that being said I do believe that Kirby Joseph did had a a little bit of a sophomore slump this past year now now there were morons on Twitter that were posting gifs of like the ESPN like little bubbles where they show you what's going on during the play and they show Kirby Joseph running off the screen 20 yards downfield and they're like who is Kirby Joseph covering those people do not deserve to have an opinion on the game of football I don't remember who said it otherwise I'd call them out but when you're playing cover one or cover two which the Lions didn't play a whole lot of cover two but they did play a lot of cover one but hypothetically if you're a deep safety in either of those two schemes you have to be 20 yards down the field minimum in case there's a double move in case there's somebody running a post on the backside That You Don't See so he's doing his job and some people on the internet were stupid and said what is he doing I can't believe he's playing this poorly when he wasn't playing this poorly now another big problem with Cur Joseph this is something that it's not just a problem with the Lions but this is something that a lot of teams do they find themselves a not necessarily Elite caliber like true free safety deep safety but this happens all the time with players who were just you know good deep safeties and then all of a sudden they say oh hey you're a good player let's stop having you do the things you're good at and make you come down and play in the box and cover tight ends they did this with Tracy Walker and his second year with Matt Patricia and it was horrible he was one of the worst players in the NFL that year according to PFF and then guess what in Tracy Walker's third year they moved him back to free safety and he was a good starting free safety for the lions that year I think the same thing's going to happen with Kirby Joseph I don't want to see Kirby Joseph in the Box I don't want to see him in the slot I don't want to see him do anything other than play center field in cover one cover three or a split safety look in cover four or cover two that's all I want to see Kirby Joseph do I don't want to see him 10 yards of the line of scrimmage because guess what when they moved him back to that role later on in the season guess what happened he started making plays and he ended up with four interceptions just like his rookie year so just let him be a center fielder out there just let him play deep that's what he's good at because he has Elite caliber range for the position but for whatever reason these defensive coordinators just get in their head and they're just like I'm going to stop asking you to do the that you're good at and ask you to do a bunch of stuff that we already have players that can do better than you ever could anyway and we don't have anybody that can play center field like you do anyway even when we had johy Gardner Johnson this past year Kirby Joseph was a better cover person than Cony Gardner Johnson Gardner Johnson made his money working in the Box on the slot so I don't understand that decision a whole lot either but anyway my rant about Kirby Jud if has taken up enough time of this video let's move on to Brian Branch Brian branch is going to play more safety this year that's been the early reports and I am kind of excited for it however again kind of touching on the Kirby J stuff again I don't necessarily believe in expanding a player's role to a full ass different position when they were arguably one of the four or five best players at their position this past season like Brian Branch got all pro votes as a nickel Corner in the NFL as a rookie so I like maybe he can go to safety and just be a Pro bable Caliber safety if that's true then move him to safety because that's a more valuable position than nickel Corner however if you end up moving him to safety and he's either average or below average like what happens a lot of the time when you start moving defensive backs around then you may end up ruining his development as a potential All Pro Caliber nickel corner so I guess we just have to see how Brian Branch transitions to the safety position although it's probably not something I would have done all right moving on to the depth at the Depth Safeties safety position the primary depth is going to be uh ifim fonu and I think probably khil dorsy as the other backup safety I do think CJ Moore who is coming off of a year-long gambling suspension is someone that is going to have a very good chance chance to make the roster because of the special team's upside and to be honest with you two years ago when he was on the team when he came in in spot Fillin Duty as a safety and he even played in the slot a little bit he wasn't that bad he wasn't a liability and when we're getting down to like third or fourth on the depth chart you not being a liability is really really good so I like CJ Moore as a player I like the fact that he's an elite special teams player I like the fact that Galil dorsy is a very very good to borderline elite special teams player as well Brandon Joseph is someone that was getting first round hype while he was at Northwestern decided to transfer to Notre Dame which was a dumb decision and then he didn't even get drafted but he is someone that has legit size for the position I think he has good range I think he's someone that gives you versatility uh he would not surprise me if he ended up making the roster outright as a defensive back speaking of players that are going to make the roster outright these are the players that I believe are in the roster full stop uh Carlton Davis tyon Arnold Andis ristra Meek Robertson Kirby Joseph Brian branch and iffy melan fono I would be shocked and astonished beyond measure if any of these players were cut as far as guys that I think are probably in I would say Kell vildor and Le dorsy are probably in I would lean in for them as opposed to them getting cut guys that are on the roster bubble are 5050 type of players CJ Moore Steven Gilmore Brandon Joseph and Maurice Norris who has reportedly been making a whole lot of plays in Camp so far if I had to guess I would say only one of those four players make the roster I don't necessarily see the Lions keeping 11 defensive backs that could be the case they could decide that they want the depth there however I think they're going to Value the Special Teams productivity of their linebackers and defensive line men a little bit more than the secondary right now so if I had to guess I would say kandel VOR Khalil dorsy both make the roster and CJ Moore as well with Steven Gilmore Brandon Joseph and Maurice Norris being very strong practice squad candidates but that's just me and what 15:19.Depth Chart do I know I'm just some on the internet giving you his opinion and it's at this point in the video that I would like to remind you to like the video if you liked it subscribe if you want to see more content like this and if you disagree with me at any point or you just have something to say go ahead and drop a comment down in the comment section below and now with the outro done and out of the way there's only one thing left to say and that's that I'll see you next time