Lions Coach Adds Insight Regarding Backup QB Battle, Roster Decisions

Prior to joint practice with Houston Texans, Dan Campbell was asked by Lions OnSI what would be the value of keeping three quarterbacks on the roster. Taking away a roster spot for a quarterback who can't really help the team or won't see the field would likely negatively impact depth in other areas.

“Well that’s exactly what it is. If you do that, you lose depth, what, D-line or O-line? Or receiver, or defense back, or linebacker or – you get the point," Campbell said. "So, how important is that relative to the other positions? What’s hard is – look, call it what you want, when you have a year like we did last year, you get affected a little bit by it. It has an effect on the way you think. Depth, depth, depth. We’ve got to make sure that we have the depth.”

Every season is getting a little more challenging for players to earn a spot on the Lions' roster.

“It’ll be tough. I feel like every year it gets a little bit harder to decide what you want to do. I just keep bringing it up, we’re looking for the best 69 players we can find, and how do we keep all of them? Because we’re going to need all of them," said Campbell. "That’s the challenge. We’ve got some pretty good competitions going, we’ve got some guys who have really raised their play, and they’ve caught our eye.

"There are some guys here, certainly, my mind’s not made up. My eyes are open. We’re going to take it down to the wire and see if some of these guys really can just take that next little jump, because they’ve really grown a lot. We’ll see.”