Keith Abney II

Why wait? Wegovi.

it looks like it's going to be Christian Eisen, maybe a little bit of Keith Abney back there.

Um, maybe Thomas Harper plays.

I don't really know.

Um, but the lions are really thin at safety.

And as we've talked about, they need to start developing some of their own guys.

Ennis rake straw, Keith Abney, Dan Jackson, guys that you're drafting.

And I don't care if they're first round picks or seventh round picks, you're drafting these guys for a reason.

So suddenly for us to be down potentially two of the three starters at safety.

Does Hart matter? It does mean, as has been highlighted in today's press conference by Shep, that it probably means Isian is moving back to more safety, which opens up stuff for McCreary and Abney in the slots.

So that'll be something interesting to watch.

But at the same time, it's good to see, you know, Hogan fully practicing with the wrist injury.

just number one, because obviously the stress we have on the safeties anyway, but also because the way that they are going heavy right now, as much as I don't trust Devin White in coverage, I'd rather have Malcolm Rodriguez out there covering a tight end, probably not Sadiq, please don't make him cover Sadiq.

Yeah, that sounds bad.

Yeah, but like their tight end too, covering him rather than, you know, a Roger McCreary, Keith Abney.

Because that's just a Mitch match they're going to absolutely blitz on for the Jets in the best way.

And I think you can probably even expect the Jets to test the Lions in this way because your secondary is going to be kind of influx.

And if the Lions do go in there and they decide to give someone like Nick Whiteside or it is Ray Straw or Keith Abney more opportunities in the secondary.

Well, now that's even more new faces, even more chances of communication not being sound.

And so it wouldn't surprise me if you see AG and Frank Reich really try to stress this passing defense of the Lions to just to see like, OK, how how much have you guys improved in your communication? How how likely are you guys to trust one another when it comes down to playing man, playing zone? How disciplined can you be? And when you talk about these skill positions, players that they have at their disposal.

And it's something that I'm going to be very interested to see how the Lions choose to attack that.

Do they do they go with the linebacker? Do they go with the nickel? Because Christian Isian is being probably moved to safety, or at least we're expecting him to be moved to safety in this game.

Do you put Roger McCreary on him exclusively because he has the size or do you still trot out maybe Keith Abney if he ends up being active this week?

Yeah, the personnel thing is going to be like that first series.

And of course, we are gonna start within the secondary where there's been a little bit of movement here this week, um, and obviously a lot of concern.

We'll start with a question from our good friend Ash Soden, who asks, "Could Izian move back to safety to cover Maddox's injury while also opening up more snaps for Keith Abney? Or will the team prefer to keep him there and sign someone else behind Clark and Harper to back them up?"

Uh, so my kinda general impression is that they have a role that they really like Izian in, um, as that kind of, uh, nickel safety-

Sure

Yep.

And we saw McCreary kinda fill the in, that role.

Uh, but Abney doesn't-

Can we blame him?

Healthy scratch.

Keith Abney, fifth round rookie this year.

Has some real promise.

Healthy scratch.

I think that's the bigger issue than talent at this point right now with Calvin Shepard's defense schematically.

The scheme's not good, but it's not being helped by the fact that there's too many moving pieces and parts in too many spots that aren't seeing the field the same way, seeing the opposing offense the same way.

I don't think injecting guys who used to be good at other places is a better option than trying Ennis Raikstra, trying Keith Abney, trying Nick Whiteside.

You've invested all this time and all this patience in Ennis Raikstra.

So what is the problem? Because you have Ennis Raikstraw, who's a healthy inactive.

You have Keith Abney, who's a healthy inactive.

Unless something happened last night that I don't know about because I was in the bubble going into the game.

You're not playing certain guys that you're drafting.

They're a step behind.

And we can blame it on the talent, but at some point, you've got to blame that on coaching.

Because again, they've drafted players like Ennis Raikstraw, Keith Abney, Dan Jackson.

They drafted these players.