00:07lions football is back and they got a preseason game at home tomorrow let's bring in our
00:14lions insider the birchie kid will birchfield who writes for our website covers a lot of our
00:19teams here and has been entrenched at lions uh training camp fall camp and joins us at this
00:25time here on 97.1 birchie what's up my man what's going on boys how we doing good to be
00:30back on with
00:31you we love it doing well yeah we absolutely love it uh is there is there going to be a
00:35tv appearance
00:36this weekend you know there is not going to be as far as i'm aware i believe the pregame show
00:43in
00:43the preseason is handled by the distinguished lomas brown and an equally distinguished jennifer hammond
00:48so look for them on fox 2 tomorrow but you will hear from me during the radio pregame show with
00:54dan miller and lomas around 10 o'clock so you can't escape me one way or the other we're not
00:59trying to we embrace it i i did notice last week i had i sent hammer a text because i
01:04saw some of the
01:05pregame coverage and and she was like in the in the end zone with lomas talking and she had to
01:10have
01:10been standing on top of something because she was almost at lomas eye level i'm like oh my god
01:16how high of a ladder is hammer on right now i think she was on drew cutscene shoulders
01:23wow that may have been that may have been she's a great sport about it so it was good yeah
01:28i know
01:28she's the best okay you wrote about aiden hutchinson and how he has and it's on our website on someone
01:34at ticket.com and and you know we always hear good things good reports this guy looks great this that
01:40guy looks great people can't start raving about him is aiden about to have one of these absolute
01:46monster seasons where he is considered amongst the elites of the elites in the league i mean he
01:52already is kind of there but is this is he about to even take it next level yeah i mean
01:57that would
01:57be the next step for him right i agree he is in the elite of the league i guess the
02:01next phase would
02:03be that the capital e elites of the capital e elites you know he was even on the verge of
02:08that last
02:08season this is a guy that did finish fourth in the nfl and sacks behind only miles garrett
02:14daniel hunter and brian burns and led the league and quarterback pressures for whatever you might
02:20think of quarterback pressures he had 100 of them and only three players in the last 10 years have
02:25had more in a season it goes micah parsons aaron donald and max crosby so like hutch has established
02:31himself as i would argue one of the 25 to 30 best players in the league and one of the
02:36five to seven
02:37best edge rushers where he can get better this year in my opinion and in the opinion of the lions
02:43is by actually playing a few less snaps per game he was the only defensive end in the nfl last
02:50season
02:50who played a thousand snaps and to put that into perspective he played about 150 more over the
02:58course of the season than guys like miles garrett and brian burns both of whom ended up with more
03:03sacks than him and you know i think there is actually not i think i know there is a commitment
03:08this year on the part of kelvin shepherd and dan campbell to get hutch a few extra breathers per
03:13game and they now have the pieces at least on paper that will allow them to do that and guys
03:18like
03:18derrick moore and dj wanham some fresh legs on the edge some some legs that aren't those of marcus
03:24davenport and um that will allow them over the course of the second quarter or the third quarter
03:30those middle series in a game to get hutch a few more breathers and he said look we started to
03:35do
03:35that at the end of last season and i felt my production by my production pick up and if you
03:40look over the first 13 games last year hutch played 93 of the defensive snaps which is like an ungodly
03:48load for a defensive end to carry and over the final four games that fell down to 83 that's in
03:54the range of guys like burns and miles garrett and in those four games hutch had six sacks it was
03:59his
03:59best four game spurt of the season so i think the lions saw that he felt that he said in
04:04those games
04:05by the fourth quarter it makes a big difference it really helps my conditioning and that's when
04:09you want your best players at their best so i think this year we'll see hutch probably play more like
04:1480 to 85 percent of the snaps and they're hoping and he's believing that'll help him make more plays
04:20over the course of the game and over the course of the season you know when you think about it
04:23maybe one of the most coveted positions in football if you're a free agent would be
04:28the other defensive end position because hutch has been so good and he deserves so much attention
04:34from the offense he's going to get the double teams and all that that the other edge rusher kind
04:38of gets you know forgotten in the mix a little bit and the guys you mentioned with wanham and
04:43derrick morgue is stepping into their opportunities and hasanine you know how do you how are you seeing
04:48that that battle shape out for the for that other edge rush position yeah so it's been really fun to
04:54watch hasanine for one you mentioned him although he's not so much in that traditional rush group that's
05:00what they had him playing last year and it wasn't a great fit for his play style he was more
05:05of that
05:06big end at boise state and that's more in the mold of say tyler lacy and that's what they have
05:11hasanine playing now and that's been one of the biggest reasons for his explosion during training
05:18camp so when it comes to those traditional rush ends i do agree that wanham and derrick moore are in
05:23position to make a lot of plays this year playing opposite a guy who draws obviously tons of attention
05:28from the opposing offense and i'll tell you what guys derrick moore was a monster in in practice a
05:34couple of days ago and i get it it's one practice on one day of training camp but he had
05:39missed some
05:39time with a minor groin injury he was back out there a few days ago and was wrecking things and
05:45it was also a glimpse into how the lions might use more this season and use their defensive ends at
05:51large like there were plays on monday where on third down chef would have four defensive ends out
05:56there and and they were just wreaking havoc on on the offensive line and you can interpret that one
06:02of two ways the offensive line is sagging the defensive line is surging but they were using
06:06alignments that we never really saw last year and this is part of the defense's and shepherd's
06:11commitment to being more dynamic and more flexible this year so uh derrick moore is definitely carging
06:17a rollout as at least in the beginning you know a situational movable pass rusher on third down and
06:23based on the way doug you know this he played at michigan that seems to suit him really well
06:28yeah um the other guy that and it's it's it's certain players it's easy to buy into the hype and
06:34you can see it and hutch being an example of that and you just mentioned derrick moore
06:37what about this new and improved version uh now with less weight of tyleek williams is it is he
06:45gonna live up to the first round billing yeah i think this is a huge year for tyleek williams i
06:52think
06:52the duo of tyleek williams and alim mcneil will dictate in a really big way how good this defense
06:59can be this season the lions definitely shifted this offseason away from some of those heavier
07:05players in the middle those dj readers and roy lopez's and toward the maybe slightly smaller but
07:12much quicker players like alim and tyleek and those two are going to get all kinds of opportunities
07:17this year to recap again yes tyleek has slimmed down um he he also had ballooned a bit in the
07:23offseason when he went on a cruise he said and just couldn't stop eating all of the awesome food so
07:28um he he made a concerted effort to drop close to 50 pounds this offseason i think a lot of
07:33that to be
07:34to be honest he had put on but he he does feel like he's he's not just lighter but also
07:40stronger and
07:40he said it you know i i feel 10 times quicker than i did last year and he's already a
07:46guy who
07:46processes the game really quickly but now it seems like he has a burst in his step that maybe wasn't
07:52there last year and it'll be interesting to see how his role evolves this season because last year
07:56he hardly ever played on third down in fact i went back and looked at this recently and i think
08:02like 95 percent of his snaps last year were on first or second down and even when he came in
08:09on third and fourth down it was in like third and one or fourth and two clear rushing downs but
08:15this
08:15year i think we're going to see him more on passing downs and the lions were missing in a huge
08:20way
08:20interior penetration last year but the hope is that alim and tyleek together can provide that
08:26the offensive line obviously is uh it's something everybody's going to focus on they got panay
08:30switching over to the left side kate mays was going to be the starting center to start the
08:35season until he had the wrist injury and now there's a little bit of chaos going on with
08:39with scruggs and mclaughlin or is ratledge going to get snaps and all that it seems like things have
08:45calmed down a little bit and it looks like it's scruggs's job right now for the first least until
08:49mays comes back how is that competition helped with uh with kind of solidifying that offensive line
08:56yeah the only it's crazy guys how quickly depth can dissolve even in training camp i mean this team
09:04entered august feeling like it was really well fortified especially on the interior of the
09:08offensive line and then well ben bars comes in with an injury and then cade mays gets hurt and then
09:14you
09:14got to move juice grubs who was one of her two backup guards along with ben barge to center and
09:19now
09:19ben bars is out again with a concussion and all of a sudden the lions are working out their first
09:23round
09:23pick from 2015 lakin tomlinson and will hernandez who uh spent the past couple years in arizona so
09:30you know they aren't as they're not on quite as stable ground as they were say two weeks ago but
09:35the center position and the center job does feel like scruggs to lose and you know i think he played
09:41pretty darn well there as a starter for the texans in 2024 he wasn't nearly as good at guard for
09:47houston in
09:4823 or 25 but you know i think that his nfl experience gives him the obvious leg up on
09:53mclaughlin and there is still some work to be done to be done there as you would expect i mean
09:58in that same practice a couple nights ago where um tiley williams and aline mcneil were wreaking havoc
10:05there were also a couple poor exchanges fumbles between juice grubs and jerry goff and those were
10:10very simple under center snaps where the ball ended up on the ground based on either a missed timing or
10:16missed communication including one play down by the goal line that in a game could have cost chance
10:20the lions a chance to score a touchdown so that relationship um is still growing as you would
10:26expect it to but i do think the lions see scruggs as the guy in week one but mclaughlin has
10:30has a lot
10:31of potential as well after what you've seen out there this fall do you feel better or worse about the
10:38secondary i feel the same way i did i guess that's a total hedge
10:47i feel like i'm stony well let's go but it might be bad
10:53um i feel better about dj reed and i think that's huge i think in a lot of ways he's
10:58the x factor
10:59for the defense or at least the secondary in the first half of the season and you know it seems
11:04a little bit counterintuitive to call a marquee free agent signing just a year ago an x factor but
11:10you know we saw two versions of him last year there was pre-injury reed who looked like a
11:15cornerback one and there was post-injury who looked nothing like a cb the cb1 more like probably a cb3
11:21but
11:21you know he went down to panama this this offseason at the suggestion of fred warner his former teammate
11:26with the 49ers and and got stem cell treatment on the hamstring and he said it made a huge difference
11:31and it looks like it has i mean he has his his long speed back and that was clearly lacking
11:36in the second half of last year like go turn on that cowboys game he was just he could not
11:41physically
11:42keep up with their top receivers like cd lamb and uh he was exposed in a lot of games big
11:47games down
11:48the stretch now he was healthy enough to be out there he'll tell you he should have been better but
11:51he'll also tell you it was a tale of of two tapes watching himself back last year so he looks
11:57more
11:57like the player they signed and if they can have a stable cornerback one i think you can survive
12:03with rocky scene as cornerback three and then look they're going to play a lot more nickel it sounds
12:07like this year so there's going to be opportunities for guys like keith avenue christian izian maybe
12:12even roger mccreary to help add some different looks to the secondary real quick who doesn't play
12:18in the game tomorrow what starters are not going to play that you think we know jared goff isn't
12:23going to play i don't think we'll see isaac uh sorry amon ross st brown play i'd be surprised to
12:29see gibbs play maybe even hutch uh i think basically if you're an established pro bowler
12:34all pro level player there's probably not much purpose in playing but the other guys definitely
12:39archie appreciated boots on the ground fully entrenched in lions fall camp and now doing a
12:44lot of video interviews where can people find those oh yeah go check those out you know i post
12:49those on my twitter but also on our station accounts on instagram facebook i think they're
12:53on tiktok and youtube too so yeah go check those out had a good catch up with dj reed yesterday
12:59uh i the first one i did you guys will love this was with isaac tesla and most of the
13:04comments were
13:05the spider-man meme where they're all pointing at each other like who's who which one which one is
13:10which um but yeah those are fun to go check those out uh on twitter at birchie underscore kid or
13:15you
13:16can see him uh on our website 971 the ticket.com thanks we'll do it again soon all right talk
13:22to you
13:22guys thank you thanks buddy there's our guy the birch kid joining us from detroit alliance fall camp and of
13:28course we'll be covering the game tomorrow for us here on 971 read them at 971 the ticket.com
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