Could newly signed Lion push a veteran off the roster soon?
The Detroit Lions signed two players to their practice squad on Tuesday. One of them got a lot more attention than the other. That was cornerback Anthony Averett for obvious reasons. The team just lost Emmanuel Moseley for the season and here's a guy that could make his way onto the roster. He's not the […]
The Detroit Lions signed two players to their practice squad on Tuesday. One of them got a lot more attention than the other. That was cornerback Anthony Averett for obvious reasons. The team just lost Emmanuel Moseley for the season and here's a guy that could make his way onto the roster. He's not the guy that I find more interesting though. It's the other guy that has a bigger shot to make more noise in Detroit.
I'm talking about tight end Anthony Firkser. The 28-year-old tight end has been in the league since 2017 and while he has limited starting experience, he's put some good things on tape and on the board that could spell real trouble for Brock Wright.
Wright's 2023 has been pretty rough. Through five weeks, he's the lowest graded player on the entire offense according to Pro Football Focus. Malcolm Rodriguez is the only player on the entire roster that grades out lower.
Where Wright has had a lot of trouble is in the blocking world. He's graded at 66.7 in pass blocking and 36.5 in run blocking. It's been a real problem week after week. Even though he's only been on 101 run snaps, that's more than enough for a sample size to know that this isn't working.
Firkser, on the other hand, has shown that he can be pretty good in the pass block game and at least better at run blocking. Firkser scored an 80.3 pass blocking grade with the Falcons in 2022. He had a 53.3 run blocking grade during that time. He played 11 games for the Falcons last season and while his snap count was pretty low during the season, becasue he was behind Kyle Pitts and Hayden Hurst, he played well when he got the chance.
The Lions should be considering giving him a chance on Sunday to see what he can do. At this point, it couldn't hurt. The only concern is that he did struggle with blocking while he was with the Titans. Part of that could be that the Titans are more of a run first team. The other part could be that the Titans were the second worst team in pass blocking efficiency in 2021. I don't think you can put all that on Firkser.
As for Mitchell, this whole thing has been a disappointment. I'm not sure he's to blame though. Mitchell can be be a good receiving tight end, but the Lions just don't use him. He's played six snaps all season. It's bummer becasue I was super high on him coming out of Virginia Tech and he just hasn't had the chance to show what he can do yet.
We'll see soon enough where things go with Firkser. My guess is that he'll be active before you know it.