Lions' Grant Stuard is carving out a brand new role ahead of 2025 season

It's extremely difficult to miss Detroit Lions linebacker Grant Stuard between his long flowing hair and electric personality. But, if you've been watching the preseason this year, you may have noticed that Stuard's special teams role has expanded a bit. To kick off the 2025 NFL preseason, Stuard fielded a kickoff ran it about 26 yards and fumbled - experiment over, right? It had to be head coach Dan Campbell messing around. It was not. And, when the Lions gave up a score to the Los Angeles Chargers in that same contest, Stuard went back out as a kick returner once again. Stuard, so far, has returned 4 kicks for 112 yards this preseason, and it appears we may just be getting started with the Stuard kickoff experiment. Special Teams coordinator Dave Fipp spoke to the media on Tuesday about Stuard's potential as a punt returner, saying, "He's showed a bunch of great things and then it said to us, ‘OK, now we got to invest more time in him, to be fair to him and help him with ball security, and stuff like that,