In past years, a player’s season was over if they were placed on the injured reserve before the final roster cutdowns. However, a rule change adopted by the NFL in 2024 means that’s not necessarily the case anymore. And that new rule change could come into play for the Detroit Lions, who have suffered a couple of recent injuries that appear to meet the criteria for the new rule — a change the Lions themselves proposed.
From the league meeting earlier this offseason, the adopted change to the roster cutdown injured reserve:
By Competition Committee; amends Article XVII, Section 17.16(C), to permit each club to place a maximum of two players who are placed on an applicable Reserve List on the business day of the final roster reduction to be designated for return. Such players will immediately count as two of the club’s total designations.
[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal]
In plain words, the new rule allows teams the ability to place two players on injured reserve at the roster cutdown deadline to return during the season. That has not been the case in the past with the NFL; if a player went on injured reserve before the active 53-man roster is set, he was out for the season.
That rule led to awkward roster gymnastics, such as the Lions waiving RB Craig Reynolds at the deadline so they could carry an injured Julian Okwara onto the 53-man roster. Okwara was not injured enough to be out for the season, and the Lions wanted to be able to activate him at some point (which they did), but they had to have him on the initial 53-man roster for at least one day and then put him on I.R. to make that happen.
The new rule means the Lions can put one or two players on I.R. at the deadline and still be able to bring them back during the season without having to cut someone like Reynolds, who was waived knowing that he would be re-signed in a day (which he was).
Detroit already has two candidates to utilize the new rule change. Defensive lineman John Cominsky is the first. Cominsky went down with a torn MCL in his right knee in last week’s practices. Head coach Dan Campbell indicated that Cominsky could potentially return for the playoffs/
The Lions have not yet placed Cominsky on any reserve lists, keeping him eligible to use the new rule. Detroit could choose to do the same with cornerback Emmanuel Moseley, who suffered a torn pectoral muscle in Monday’s joint practice with the New York Giants.
As the Lions experienced firsthand in 2023, a torn pec is not necessarily a season-ending injury. Defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson suffered the same injury in Week 2 and returned for Week 18 and the postseason. A similar four-month timeline for Moseley extends out to roughly Week 15, so he too makes a candidate to return.
Moseley’s status is a little more complicated by his extensive recent injury history. Playing for the 49ers, Moseley tore his ACL in October of 2022 and missed the rest of the season. The Lions signed him in 2023, but an offseason setback in Moseley’s rehabilitation kept him off the field until Week 5, exactly 364 days after his initial injury. Moseley lasted all of two snaps before tearing his other ACL. He lasted five padded practices before suffering the torn pec.
Cominsky doesn’t have nearly the soft-tissue injury background that Moseley does. He missed time in 2022 with a broken thumb, a different sort of injury.
There are still three preseason games and weeks of practice ahead of the roster cutdown deadline, of course. The Lions could have a player more integral to the team than Moseley and/or Cominsky go down to an injury that they could return from and choose to use the new rule with them instead.
One last consideration: teams are allowed to bring back up to eight players from I.R. during the season. Using the new rule would burn up two of those returns. Players must miss at least four games before being eligible for return.