The Detroit Lions' first-team offense dominated the Dolphins' first-team defense on Wednesday after looking sluggish most of training camp.
Taylor Decker needed that, for him and the offense.
Decker, who spent the first two weeks of training camp on injured reserve as he recovered from offseason shoulder surgery, said his shoulder came out feeling "great" after his most extensive action of the summer in the Detroit Lions' joint training camp practice with the Miami Dolphins on Wednesday, Aug. 13.
Decker, who took part in team drills for the first time Monday, Aug. 11, played about 20 snaps in team periods and took part in one-on-one pass-rush drills Wednesday against the Dolphins. Dan Skipper and Jamarco Jones spelled Decker at left tackle with the first-team offense.
"It feels really good," Decker said. "And then the conditioning aspect of it. We did a lot of work on running, stuff inside during practice to make sure once I was able to get in practice, I wasn't going to have an issue with conditioning that was going to cause me to not be able to have reps.
"I mean, we're building my reps up right now. Today I probably got 20, but that was the big thing. Am I going to be in shape? Is my body going to feel good? Cause I think if I can get those things down, I know how to play football."
The Lions' first-team offensive line spent most of Wednesday's practice working together, and the offense as a whole had one of its best days against new competition for the first time this summer.
Wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown had a dominant performance against a Dolphins defense playing without top edge rusher Jaelan Phillips and starting safety Ashtyn Davis, and the first-team offense scored five touchdowns in eight snaps in the red-zone period.
"I think anytime you're executing, you're catching balls, your run game's going, you're protecting the quarterback and you’re scoring touchdowns and getting first downs that always looks good," St. Brown said. "We haven't watched the tape yet, but from what I saw out here, I mean it looked pretty solid for us as an offense."
The Lions offense – with Decker out, new starters at both guard spots and a new coordinator in John Morton calling plays – had struggled much of camp to protect Goff from an array of blitzes and the Lions defense.
St. Brown called the Lions' offensive struggles "the white elephant" in the room – something everyone recognized but didn't say much about.
And Decker said his impression was that it was the offense's best day of summer.
"I mean, we have a really good defense that we practice against, so the yards are going to be tough to come by," he said. "And then you get a new opponent and just with the way that we practice and the tempo that we practice at, we play that way so when we get in games it's harder for other people to keep up. And I think that pays dividends. It's hard on you as a player. You got to recover, you got to take care of yourself. But when it goes to playing against other teams, I think it pays dividends."
Lions coach Dan Campbell said players were excited to work against new schemes on both sides of the ball in their fourth week of camp.
Rookies Tyleik Williams and Tate Ratledge are the Lions' only projected starters who have played in preseason games this summer; none are expected to Saturday, Aug. 15, against the Dolphins at Ford Field (1 p.m., WJBK-TV) or Aug. 23 against the Houston Texans.
For Decker and others, that means their two joint practices this week against the Dolphins – the Lions and Dolphins practice against each other again on Thursday, Aug. 14 – and one next week against the Houston Texans are the best barometer of how ready they are for the season opener Sept. 7 against the Green Bay Packers.
"We're not where we want to be for Week 1 of the season for sure and there's been some moving parts," Decker said. "I haven't even really practiced until a couple of days ago was my first team reps in practice, and I've played with a lot of these guys a lot. So there's a level of continuity and there's been a little bit of a Rolodex of players at left tackle and stuff like that.
"So having guys in and out and then, like I said, we were playing against a really good defense. Our defense has a lot of good players and they're playing at a high level, so we're definitely not where we want to be Week 1, but we got time. We’re going to get there and we're going to continue to get better. And this was a good one to build on and we got to come on and just do it again tomorrow."
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Taylor Decker: Detroit Lions offense needed big day vs Miami Dolphins
Category: Football