0xbt

Detroit Lions cornerback Darius Slay misses Wednesday’s practice The Detroit Lions took the field on Wednesday afternoon for their first day of practice in preparation for their Week 3 matchup against the New England Patriots. Unfortunately for the Lions Youth Taylor Decker Jersey , they were without one of their best players. Cornerback Darius Slay, who left Sunday’s game against the 49ers with a concussion, was not in attendance during Wednesday’s practice. This suggests that Slay is not yet at Stage 4 of the concussion protocol. According to the league’s concussion protocol, a player must go through five different steps of recovery—nicely outlined by MLive’s Nate Atkins here. Step 4 is “football-specific activities” which includes non-contact drills at practice. In order to be cleared for Sunday’s practice, Slay must also be cleared for full contact practice. So if Slay can’t even participate in non-contract drills by Thursday, it seems unlikely he’ll play this week. The Lions made a proactive move on Wednesday, signing defensive back DeShawn Shead back to the team. Shead spent training camp with the Lions competing for the No. 2 corner position with Nevin Lawson and Teez Tabor, eventually losing the job to both and getting cut. Considering Lawson and Tabor’s struggles through two weeks, we may see Shead play regardless of whether Slay returns or not. As noted by Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, history is not on Slay’s side here. Six different Lions players suffered concussions last season Youth Christian Jones Jersey , and only one was able to return the following week. However, Glover Quin, the one exception, had an extra week to recover because of the bye week. The Lions did get a big of good news, however. Starting right guard T.J. Lang, who missed all of last week’s practice with a back injury, returned to the field on Wednesday. Full injury designations will be given later Wednesday afternoon. After giving up 13 sacks in the first seven games of the season, things have gone off the rails in pass protection for the Lions the last two weeks.They’ve allowed 16 sacks in lopsided losses to the Vikings and Bears that leave the Lions at 3-6 and looking up at the rest of the NFC North. It’s also led to questions about whether the constant pressure has led to a drop in play for quarterback Matthew Stafford.Stafford is on pace for career worsts on a variety of fronts, but offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter initially said that a perspective on how Stafford’s played is “sort of Detroit Lions information.” Cooter opened up a bit more on the topic of whether pressure was changing the quarterback’s play later in his media session.“No, Stafford’s a really tough guy www.detroitlionsteamonline.com ,” Cooter said, via MLive.com.聽“Obviously offensively, I have to do a better job and we have to do a better job of protecting our quarterback through playcalling, scheme, execution, all those things. At the end of the day, we have to get that number down and do a better job with that. Stafford hangs in there. Stafford’s a tough guy. He’ll take a hit when needed. We just need to do a better job of protecting him. It starts with me, I have to improve the way we’re going about doing that and fix some of those errors.”The Lions face the Panthers this week and Carolina’s defense has produced 22 sacks so far this season. If Detroit can’t stop them from padding that total, it’s hard to imagine a different result from the last couple of weeks.