Lions' dream of fully healthy defense crushed by more injury news

Malcolm Rodriguez, after suffering a season-ending knee surgery last season, is not expected to see the field for the Detroit Lions until November. That's the "conservative" estimate that Lions head coach Dan Campbell offered to reporters on Thursday, delivering yet another blow to a Detroit defense that's already missing some depth at linebacker with Alex Anzalone out.

Detroit's defense and its injury woes were a big part of why the team was unable to survive in the postseason in 2024 after such an illustrious regular season. It was just too much for a unit of mostly third stringers to bear, and now, the Lions are dealing with more linebacker issues before 2025 has even kicked off.

Rodriguez suffered the injury back on Thanksgiving against the Chicago Bears. He tore his ACL, which is an injury that takes quite some time to recover from. Considering how late in the year it happened, it makes sense that he'd likely not be ready for any on the field action until about a year removed from the injury.

Rodriguez out until at least November

With Rodriguez out along with Anzalone, the Lions' depth at linebacker looks to be Trevor Nowaske, DaRon Gilbert, Jack Campbell, Grant Stuard, Zach Cunningham, Derrick Barnes, Ezekiel Turner, and Anthony Pittman. Campbell is probably the best in this bunch, as he's expected to take a big leap in his third year with the Lions and in the league.

Anzalone, who was also recovering from a broken forearm this offseason, is back to full strength but has not reported to Lions OTAs as of yet. These are purely voluntary, however, so there's not much concern there. But, given his potential contract gripe with the Lions front office, him missing these workouts has a bit of extra kick to it.

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The defense has gotten back some major reinforcements outside of Rodriguez, though. Brian Branch, Ennis Rakestraw Jr., and most notably, Aidan Hutchinson, are all back in the building and have been participating in OTAs as scripted.

Rodriguez is a big blow but one we should've seen coming. ACL tears typically take about a year to recover from, but it just might seem longer since we last saw him play 10 games for Detroit and we're not going to see him again until maybe late November. It's a big gap.