Two starters watch from the sideline
Wednesday morning, when the Detroit Lions jog onto the field for the first practice of training camp, two regulars from their secondary won’t be moving with them. Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph were placed on the PUP list on Sunday, the physically unable to perform tag, and so was tight end Tyler Conklin. It looks worse than it is. Players parked there still count against the 90-man roster. They just can’t practice until the team clears them.
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Two All-Pro defenders worth tracking
Branch is 24. His 2024 season ended early, wrecked by an Achilles injury in Week 14, and that hurt a defense that leaned on him hard. The résumé is loud anyway: a Pro Bowl nod in 2024, 258 tackles, 4.5 sacks and seven interceptions across 43 games since Detroit took him in the second round of the 2023 draft. Joseph, 25, saw his own year trimmed to six games by a knee problem. He led the league with nine interceptions in 2024 and earned an All-Pro spot for it. The career line reads 265 tackles and 20 interceptions since he arrived as a third-round pick in 2022.
Conklin joins them on the shelf
Conklin’s Detroit tenure is off to the same stalled start. Signed in March out of free agency, the tight end came over from the Chargers with 101 yards on seven catches a year ago, and now an injury has landed him on the PUP list too. None of the three can touch a drill while the label sticks. What softens the blow is the timing. Any of them can be activated on any day of camp and slot straight back into the rotation.
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