The Detroit Lions have an open roster spot heading into their Week 1 matchup at Ford Field Sunday night against the Los Angeles Rams. There’s also a chance that one of the two practice squad call-ups for the game could include a wide receiver with only four on the current 52-man roster.
That means there’s a tremendous opportunity for practice squad wide receivers Allen Robinson, Tim Patrick, Donovan Peoples-Jones and Tom Kennedy.
Robinson is a 10-year veteran with size (6-foot-2) and experience. He has 562 career receptions for 7,028 yards and 43 touchdowns and had back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons in 2019-20 playing for Chicago. He had 34 receptions in 17 games playing for Pittsburgh last season.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Robinson told detroitlions.com in the locker room after practice Tuesday. “Obviously, this is a team that’s had success. They have an established culture. A veteran quarterback. It’s a great opportunity.
“Obviously for me coming back home to my hometown, it’s good. I’m looking forward to it.”
Robinson said he’s looking at this week as a competition to earn a call-up and his main focus was just getting the playbook down and getting as acclimated as he could so if he is called upon to help he’ll be ready.
“Just trying to go out there and make plays and do the best I can,” he said.
Patrick, 28, missed the last two seasons after tearing his ACL in August 2022 and his Achilles in July 2023. Despite those injuries, he’s worked his way back and caught five passes including a touchdown in the preseason. Patrick (6-4, 212) caught 53 passes for 734 yards and five touchdowns for the Broncos in his last full season in 2021.
“It’s fun, bro,” Patrick told detroitlions.com of the opportunity. “A team that has big goals and I’m just glad they chose me to compete for that spot.”
The one thing missing right now from the Lions’ receiving corps is size, and Robinson and Patrick both provide that. It will be interesting to see what the Lions decide to do against a Rams’ defense that like Detroit has a lot of new players in the secondary since the last time these two teams met.
“Yeah, in between periods – like special teams periods I can get with them and talk with them. I think it’s so valuable for me to hear how they like things and how I like things and how certain steps should be how we do it differently than maybe places they’ve been,” quarterback Jared Goff said of working with Patrick and Robinson in practice this week.
“I think it’s super valuable. So yeah, I’ll get 10, 15, 20 minutes of reps in between periods with them and they love it. They’re both vets. They’re both going to be great players for us. It’s fun to work with vets like that where that learning curve seems to be a bit shorter, and you can kind of speak a language they can understand.”