The Lions have trimmed their roster down to 78 players so far. What has been their most surprising cut?
At the time of writing, the Detroit Lions have trimmed their roster down to 78 players and still have a long way to go to get down to the 53-man limit by 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Some of the moves were expected, while others may have come as a slight surprise.
Those in the national media that were unfamiliar with how the Lions’ receiver room was shaking out were quite surprised when the Lions named Donovan Peoples-Jones as one of their first cuts. But it came as no surprise to Lions fans that have been paying attention to training camp reports and preseason football. Kaden Davis was also released despite having a few key plays in the preseason.
Perhaps one of the more surprising moves came down to the reserve tight end battle between Shane Zylstra and James Mitchell. Only our own Ryan Mathews predicted this one correctly , as the Lions decided to cut Zylstra on Monday presumably in favor of James Mitchell.
The Lions also decided to let go their starting long snapper, Scott Daly, who has been with the team for the past few years after he won the job from Don Muhlbach in 2021.
You can track the rest of the Lions’ cuts and roster moves by checking out our roster cuts tracker .
Today’s Question of the Day is…
Which Detroit Lions roster cut has surprised you the most thus far?
My answer: Shane Zylstra is the only player cut so far that I had making the roster, so that has to be my answer. Both Zylstra and Mitchell, to me, didn’t seem to do much to separate themselves from the other early on, so I thought that this would be an extremely close battle that could have come down to the final preseason game.
If that were the case, we might be looking at the opposite result, because Mitchell was only targeted once and had a pretty bad drop, while Zylstra had four catches on five targets for 29 receiving yards. It seems likely that this battle had already been decided earlier, and maybe Mitchell was the more consistent player during practices.
Your turn. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.