Allen Park — The Detroit Lions opened training camp on Wednesday without one of their top special-teams players, placing linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin on the reserve/COVID-19 list. He joined a group of three other players on inactive lists.
Earlier this week, the Lions announced linebacker Austin Bryant would begin camp on the physically unable to perform list, while rookie receiver Javon McKinley landed on the non-football injury list. Offensive lineman Evan Brown also has a non-football injury.
Reeves-Maybin, who has appeared in 55 games for the Lions since being selected in the fourth round of the 2017 draft, re-signed with the team for another year this offseason.
In 2020, he led the team with 378 special-teams snaps, but also saw a career-low 38 defense snaps, an 87% decline from the previous year.
Earlier this offseason, coach Dan Campbell praised Reeves-Maybin’s intelligence and effort, committing to giving the player an opportunity to re-enter the defensive rotation.
“You can watch him on tape,” Campbell said. “I mean, we went back and watched him in 2019 when he played at linebacker quite a bit. So he comes in, there’s no telling. You never know what you have in this player. ”
jdrogers@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @Justin_Rogers