00:01We will talk to Dan Campbell coming up at 802 Lions head coach spoke at the
00:06podium yesterday. He had a lot that he wants to clean up. He also provided an
00:11update on Kirby Joseph and Brian Branch. No, it's not the update we were hoping
00:15for. Greg, why don't we play that for the people?
00:34Branch closer than Kirby and then there was a follow-up on Kirby.
01:02Oh, okay. So to me, that means never. Actually, it doesn't mean never. It means
01:08we'll probably see him for a week at some point because he's going to have to
01:12eventually give it a go and that's probably the only time we see him. I
01:17don't even know how long in that game that we see him believe it was October
01:2212th of last year. He injured the knee and so we're approaching a year 12 months
01:27and we didn't have any answers at that time. We didn't have any answers in
01:33February, March, April, May, June, July. How is the guy that tore his Achilles
01:38ahead of you? Well, I get different injuries, but like are you just I mean,
01:45maybe you just can't play football anymore. I mean, you couldn't practice
01:48at training camp. You can't practice today. What's going to change that's
01:52going to allow you to practice tomorrow? You know I'm saying John like right
01:55what's going to change a week from now or a month from now or in the stretch run
01:59of the season. His knee is just going to like he's going to knock on it and it
02:03works now. I believe if you go back to like last what December and January at
02:09some point Dan Campbell used the term degenerative. Yeah, and once you start
02:17hitting that degenerative terminology like what can actually be done because now
02:23he's talking about well, can we strengthen and stabilize the knee as much as
02:28possible so that he could actually go out there and play well, there's only so
02:31much stabilization and strengthening that you can do around the knee joint and if
02:36it's if it's bone on bone if it's something to do with the cartilage or if
02:41there is arthritis at some point strengthening is irrelevant then they just
02:49don't expect him to play at all. No, I that that's kind of where I'm at at this
02:52point. Yeah, I think that's I was hopeful before the season, but as we're
02:56continuing to get towards hey the pup, you know, you could become eligible to
03:01practice yesterday. You don't have to but at some point there's got to be a ramp
03:05up to actually playing in an NFL game and if he can't even do the ramp up, then
03:09why would we think he would ever play in an NFL game again and in that safety
03:13room? They're also going to be without Avante Maddox done for the season
03:16Campbell told everybody at the podium yesterday. So in addition to them not
03:19having their two starting safeties, they're now down another contributor
03:22from the back end of the defense and with no answer as to when Brian branch
03:27will be back and then the question whenever he is back, which I kind of lean
03:32towards he's back after the bye week because they didn't activate him now.
03:37Right. It feels like it's it's taking what we're hearing from Dan Campbell, but
03:42also it's the track record of what we've seen from them. We probably see Cade
03:46Mays after the bye week. We probably see Brian branch after the bye week.
03:50They're going to gain as much time as possible to get them as far along as
03:55they possibly can and then hit the ground running because the first game
03:58out of the bye actually first two games out of the bye division opponents. Yep.
04:01Green Bay and then Minnesota. So in the meantime, they said that they will be
04:07working out some guys and looking at other rosters and they signed Mills to the
04:14practice squad yesterday. Okay. I did not see that. Okay. And so he was with the
04:19team in part last year and they put him on the practice squad. See if he can get
04:24ready to play and see if he'll be an asset. So the safety room right now is Harper
04:31Clark and is he in? Yes. Okay. You've got your finger pointed at Brad.
04:36Brad. There's no question. Like if, if again, I went through all the months of the
04:41year and there's nothing that leads you to believe that Kirby Joseph is making any
04:47progress. You can see progress and there's a protocol in place. We don't know what
04:51Kirby Joseph will be immediately after he returns. Will he be what he was exactly as
04:58he was before the injury? I highly doubt it. I think he'll be an upgrade. There's no
05:03question about that. Next year is where I look for him to really take and be what he
05:08was before the injury. But for Kirby Joseph, if you have doubts, even before the
05:15season ended last year as to what this injury means and then as the offseason
05:20continued to progress, you decided that you weren't going to do anything in free
05:24agency of, you know, measure and you weren't going to do anything in the draft.
05:29You weren't going to do anything regarding a trade. I think it's, you're bordering
05:36on malfeasance. Yeah. You've set your team up for failure because you've, you've
05:44paid so many guys and you've got all pros all over the roster on both sides of the
05:49ball. Yep. Yet you've left one position group that could ultimately cost you not
05:56just a chance at a Super Bowl could cost you a chance at the division could cost
06:01you even making the post season. And again, they're the division favorites
06:05still today. Um, still have the schedule to get it done in the offense to get it
06:11done. But this is the glaring weakness that was identified by, you know, idiots
06:16on the outside like me and, and, and, and, and any, any casual fan could say, Hey, the
06:20secondary is going to be a problem for the Detroit lions this season. The man in
06:23charge of the team didn't see it that way. You know, he got into it with
06:26Burkett and, and now it's, it's this infamous like, and, and I just don't see
06:32what he sees quite honestly. Um, I don't think anybody does. So then, and we knew
06:40this was going to get harder when they broke through in 2023 and played in the
06:44NFC title game halftime 17 point lead. I hate to reopen the wound. We knew it was
06:50going to get harder. Dan Campbell knew it was going to get harder. It's part of why
06:53he said what he said about this might've been our only shot. It gets harder
06:56because they do have all pros that they have taken care of and they should take
06:59care of, but there is a salary cap and you stop picking at the top of the first
07:04round. You start picking at the bottom of the first round, hit rates a little
07:07lower down there. You start taking some gambles with your third round picks on
07:12projects, you know, backup quarterbacks and Canadian offensive linemen. Suddenly
07:17you don't have the bodies to backfill and you don't have the cap space or
07:22actually you do, but they're choosing not to use it. They've, they've invested in
07:27this rollover cap space to, to secure the longterm pieces. What's the point of
07:32being a longterm 11 win team? Don't you want to win a Superbowl? Don't you need to
07:38put all your eggs into a roster to win a Superbowl? I mean,
07:42to compete in this league, it'd be naive and borderline arrogant to say we can just
07:47roll over swaths of cap space and play without a full roster without doing
07:53everything we can to make the team better.
07:59So I'm cautious when I say this, they've cleared up this cap space. Why? He isn't
08:07and I don't expect them to really identify what he's going to do with this cap space.
08:10I think most of us believe it's just to roll over to next year and to continue to pay their
08:14own guys. But until we get to and pass the trade deadline and maybe at that point, it's
08:21even too late. But if how many weeks does this have to go where the secondary is a liability
08:27and a, a, a severe liability, does he then look and say, well, we're going to have to trade.
08:35We're going to have to bring somebody in that maybe is, has a big paycheck or maybe somebody
08:40that's looking for a big paycheck. We're going to have to give up some capital and we're actually
08:45going to have to use some of the salary cap space now until he doesn't do it. And the clock
08:49expires.
08:51I'm not going to say that he's not, but his track record says he's not. Yeah. And we'll
08:56see how dire it becomes, right? Again, there's a world where you can cover up for some of your
09:00mistakes by beating the jets, beating the Panthers and Cardinals, but I don't want to be seduced
09:07if they win these games into thinking everything will be all right. Right. It's, it's, it's like
09:11Michigan beating UTEP and Bryce Underwood looking better against UTEP. What does that mean against
09:16Iowa? We don't know. What does it mean for this secondary? If they go out and they, they
09:21find a way to stop the jets offense, like, Hey, great job. So did everybody else. We'll
09:27talk to Dan Campbell at eight Oh two. Greg's going to take us on campus in the eight o'clock
09:31hour, go through some of the big college football storylines and conference play top 25 showdowns.
09:35It's 97 one.
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