Lions head coach Dan Campbell confirms a suspicion held ahead of training camp that could have big preseason implications

The Detroit Lions have been mostly on the forefront of handling the preseason in a new way. That's holding the majority of starters out of preseason games. In 2023, the Lions basically played no starters at all outside of the few rookies who played and couple other guys like Jameson Williams. 

Joint practices were the big reason why the Lions held guys out  The idea was that the starters were getting that time in those practices so they didn't need to play in the preseason games.

"Another reason we do these (joint practices) is that I feel like you’ve got two great days of work, banked a lot of reps, and so I don’t see us playing these starters this week. I don't see it,” Campbell told Stoney and Jansen on 97.1 The Ticket last August. “We’re going to sit that core group again and let some of these young guys go. There may be a few select rookies we don’t play. We’ll see where we’re at there as well. But I think that’s the benefit of having this (joint practice session). We have over 40 reps yesterday.”

The Lions had two sets of joint practices last year and that allowed them to bank those reps as Campbell said. With only one set of joint practices scheduled, will that change? 

So with the Lions holding joint practices with the Giants ahead of their preseason game in Week 1 and none after that, will they then play their starters in Week 2 against the Chiefs to get guys some time to play ahead of the regular season, or will they look to continue doing what they're doing and hold those guys out? 

That's going to be the big question moving forward. We'll see what happens in August when the Lions are getting ready to head to Kansas City.