Before the Detroit Lions season started we talked about the Lions being smart with Tim Patrick or any of the receivers they signed to their practice squad. The big thing there was to not just put them onto the 53-man roster right away. Use those elevations.
Patrick made his Lions debut last week and looked pretty good with the team. They wound up playing him 35 snaps in that game and coming out of it, Lions head coach Dan Campbell said the team would be looking to get Patrick more involved going forward.
The thought process after that was that the Lions would add Patrick directly to the 53-man roster at some point before their Week 3 game against the Cardinals. Looks like that won’t be the case. The Lions will look to continue to elevate him per Campbell.
“What he knows is, ‘Hey, man, I’m playing. I’m going to play.’ And so whether you’re putting him on the roster, he’s up. You know, we only have three of those elevations per player. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. If somebody wants to poach, then we got a decision to make. But until then, you know, the plan would be to elevate and use him. So we expect to use him more this week. He’s had a good week of practice, you know, I like him. I really do. He fits us, you know, just the way he is, the way he works, his attention to detail, and he brings a little something different to us. He’s a big guy. He’s, you know, he’s a big target, he’s physical, he’s tough. So glad he’s here.”
This is the way to go if you ask us. While the first showing was good and the expectation is that he will be good, we still have to see that happen in more than just one game and we have to see it happen with Patrick being a bigger part of the offense.
Keeping with the elevations allows the Lions to cheaply make sure this is going to work before throwing themselves head first into it. With that said, if Patrick balls out on Sunday, look for him to immediately get signed to the 53-man roster to prevent another team from poaching him.
You might remember the Lions did a similar thing in 2022 after James Houston had a big Thanksgiving game. He was signed to the 53-man roster the very next day.