Allen Park — It had been 590 days since Penei Sewell played a football game, which seems like forever for a 20-year-old who has been immersed in the sport for almost as long as he can remember.
And for the Lions’ rookie first-round pick, it felt even longer than that as he ran out of the tunnel for Friday night’s preseason opener against the Buffalo Bills at Ford Field.
“Man, it’s like when I was first introduced to the game and I fell in love with it,” Sewell said of his NFL debut. “I felt like a little kid out there, for real. To put on that helmet and run out the tunnel with all the smoke, man, it just gave me a different type of energy that I missed.”
It gave him his first glimpse of what his immediate future holds as one of the cornerstone pieces on the Lions’ offensive line, too. A rough series to start the game against the Bills ended with a third-down sack where Sewell was knocked off balance and beaten by fellow rookie first-rounder Gregory Rousseau. Right guard Halapoulivaati Vaitai also was beaten on the play and Lions quarterback Jared Goff had no choice but to hit the deck.
But that was the only pressure Sewell allowed in 13 dropbacks on the starters’ two possessions Friday — the latter an 18-play scoring drive that lasted nearly 10 minutes.
“And now that I’ve got my first game under my belt, all the nerves are kind of settled down a little bit more,” Sewell said Monday as the Lions returned to the practice field. “I can go out there and know what to expect somewhat and just have fun and play fast.”
And play early, of course, though that was to be expected as the No. 7 overall pick. He’s a lock to start at right tackle when the Lions and new head coach Dan Campbell open the regular season at home against San Francisco on Sept. 12.
Let ’em play
But Sewell, who opted out of last year’s abbreviated college season at Oregon, likely won’t be the only member of this year’s draft class that starts from Week 1 this fall. A few weeks into training camp, it appears two others — defensive tackle Alim McNeill and receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown — also are in line to start.
And even with some minor injuries playing havoc with training camp, it’d be a surprise if all seven 2021 draft picks don’t make the 53-man roster and carve out reserve roles — or more — at some point this season. Linebacker Derrick Barnes flashed some potential in limited action Friday, and so did cornerback Ifeatu Melifonwu, for that matter. Defensive tackle Levi Onwuzurike returned to practice Monday and was already jumping in with the second unit.
This is no happy accident, either, as general manager Brad Holmes explained in an interview with SiriusXM NFL radio last week.
“That’s one of the first conversations that Dan and I had when we sat down and said, ‘How are we gonna map this thing out?’” Holmes said. “We knew we were gonna have a young core group.”
But beyond that, they also knew they have a different set of expectations here, both from outside the organization — Vegas oddsmakers set the over/under on the Lions’ win total at 4½ this season — and from ownership, which signed off on a full-scale rebuild with this latest regime change.
That partly explains all the roster turnover this offseason, starting with the Matthew Stafford trade in late January and continuing from there. On the current roster, which now sits at 87 players after a couple of transactions Monday, only 38 were on the roster a year ago. That’s nearly 60% of the roster that’s new in Detroit.
And when you start looking at the projected two-deep roster, you don’t see nearly as many veterans as we saw the last couple seasons here as Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia tried to keep their ship from sinking.
What that’ll look like on Sundays this fall remains to be seen. Youth often doesn’t prevail in the NFL. But to hear Holmes talk — and Campbell has echoed this sentiment throughout the spring and summer — it’s certainly going to get a trial-by-fire opportunity to do just that this season.
“It’s great to have a young team, but you’ve got to let them play,” Holmes said. “I remember back when I was with the Rams, (general manager) Les Snead used to say, ‘You’ve got to let them cross the street by themselves.’ Dan and I were aligned in that and said, ‘You know, however this shakes out, we have these young guys, you can’t just be on the driving range just chipping away and practicing. You’ve gotta go out there and play.’ So hopefully we’re going to have the young people ready to play, and hopefully they produce.”
Larger loads
Quinn and Patricia had similar hopes for last year’s draft class, though the pandemic robbed them of a normal offseason or any preseason games. And in the end, only Jonah Jackson and John Penisini played more than 400 snaps as rookies. Injuries kept the top two picks — Jeff Okudah and D’Andre Swift — from playing more, and after getting targeted 10 times in the season opener, receiver Quintez Cephus never saw more than four passes thrown his way in a game after that.
How well some of those recent draft picks fit the new schemes being installed here is hard to say at this point. But Okudah, Swift and Jackson are being counted on as starters, and Friday night we saw another young player getting some extended run.
Julian Okwara, last year’s third-round pick who played fewer than 70 snaps as a rookie, played nearly three full quarters and a team-high 49 of the Lions’ 63 defensive snaps. He finished with a sack, a handful of pressures and three tackles, and it’s easy to see him filling a role as a third-down specialist this season.
“We felt like he really needed a load,” Campbell said. “Look, he’s a young guy that is still developing and we felt like it was important for him to come out and see how he responded.
“He made some plays. He’s like a number of those guys. You can’t forget he’s a second-year player that just needs reps. It was good to see him make some plays.”
And you can expect to see a lot more of that in the months ahead. No matter what becomes of this season, youth will be served.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @JohnNiyo