Detroit Lions Mailbag: When will Kerby Joseph be back?

When will the Lions get their All-Pro safety Kerby Joseph back?

Mike Payton — Detroit Lions Beat Writer
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It’s Thanksgiving week for the Detroit Lions, which means it’s time for turkey, stuffing, and questions that need answering.

What will the Lions do at tight end?

With Brock Wright possibly out for this game, you won’t see many two-tight-end sets. My guess is that Ross Dwelley, Anthony Firkser, and maybe Zach Horton will be out there to block, and that’s about it. If it were me, I would absolutely have Jackson Meeks elevated to play some receiving tight end in this game. You have to take advantage of some of the mismatches you can get there.

Can Miles Frazier jump right in at left guard?

I expect the Lions to activate him on Wednesday, and I expect him to be active on Thanksgiving. I just don’t know if I expect the Lions to throw him out there to start in his first NFL game in such a huge spot. With that said, it’s more than fair to expect him to get some starts this season.

Maybe against the Cowboys next week. But asking him to start on Thanksgiving against this defensive line with just a few weeks of practice in his NFL career is a lot if you ask me. But, hey, trial by fire works sometimes.

When is Kerby Joseph coming back?

If you pay attention to Joseph on social media, he’s talking like a guy who is not only about to come back, but also thinks he’s going to have enough time to get back in the lead for interceptions.

He can’t do that if he thinks he’s only going to play a game or two this season. On top of that, we know he’s out there running and moving at practice with trainers, and Lions head coach Dan Campbell keeps saying he’s improving.

I get why they didn’t go with him this week. It’s too fast a turnaround, and the team didn’t have any practices. I think, and this is purely speculation and not a report, he’ll be back against the Cowboys in Week 14. We’ll see what happens.

Thoughts on Notre Dame linebacker Drayk Bowen as a potential Anzalone replacement

I like his game in theory. He’s good against the pass and the run, and he has the Anzalone type energy. Plus, he hits hard and is usually a sure tackler. The thing that concerns me is that there’s some Jarad Davis to his game.

Everyone remembers that Davis could fly through the gap and get after quarterbacks, but he would usually miss because he was being overly aggressive. I’m not saying he misses all the time, but I see a tendency in him to get a little too excited, maybe, and leave the door open somewhere.

Coverage skills could use some work, too. You could get him late on Day 3 at this point, so why not?

Where are all the deep passes?

It’s a combination of a few things. One of them is that the Lions’ offensive line just isn’t giving the play downfield enough time to develop right now. Jared Goff has to get that ball out fast and work the intermediate stuff that the Lions are pretty good at.

The other thing is that teams know exactly what the Lions want to do. They know Detroit wants the big play, so they’re doubling up on Jameson Williams or putting the safety over top of him to make sure that they can take the deep pass away. The Lions just haven’t found a way to counter that yet.

Ideally, this would be where TeSlaa would come in because he has some deep ball and contested catch ability, too, but the Lions just don’t seem to feel that he’s ready to hit the field in an expanded role yet. That doesn’t make him a bust or say that the pick was wrong; it just means not yet, and that’s it. When he can play, it will help a lot.

Is Amon-Ra St. Brown injured?

Talk of St Brown having a hand or wrist injury, what's the truth?

— ProudDetroiter (@detroitstrong.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 7:57 PM

I keep seeing this over and over again online. The only answer I can give you is that I don’t know. The Lions have not said anything about it, and he has not either. Some screenshots of him on his podcast keep circulating, and I don’t know what people see in them, if I’m being honest.

But I do know that it is not enough to declare that he’s injured, and I certainly wouldn’t do that without having word from the team or the man himself.

With that said, I don’t get the problem here. The drops are abnormal for him, but they’re also not racking up at an alarming rate. I also know that they are the most overblown stat out there, and once one happens, your brain latches onto it and suddenly overthrown balls, underhrown balls, and balls that are batted out of hands become drops.

St. Brown has been credited with three drops this season. That’s it. He’s sixth in the league in receptions and fourth among receivers. I just don’t see the problem.

Ideal Thanksgiving Plate

I’m a simple man. I have to have some turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, and I want gravy on everything. I also love sweet potatoes, but no gravy on those. A salad or some kind of vegetable on a separate plate always hits. If I can get some collard greens, that is the preferred vegetable side.

For dessert, it’s all about either pumpkin pie or pecan pie. If someone brings a cheesecake, I’m eating that too.

Top 5 Detroit Sports What-ifs

I love this question. Let me get the Paschal part out of the way first. If he’s not activated on Wednesday, his season is over. He goes back to IR, and he’s a free agent this offseason.

The Lions may look to get him back on a sweetheart deal similar to what they did with Marcus Davenport, or they may just let him walk.

What if the Pistons never traded Grant Hill?

That trade sparked so much for what would become the 2004 Pistons. Detroit got Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins back. Wallace wound up being one of the best defensive players to ever play the game. Because the Pistons then had to replace Hill’s shooting, they traded for Rip Hamilton. The money they saved by not paying Hill and Jerry Stackhouse allowed them to sign Chauncey Billups and trade for Rasheed Wallace. If Hill stays, do the Pistons ever win the title?

What if the Lions drafted DeMarcus Ware

Going into the 2005 NFL Draft, then Lions’ GM Matt Millen really wanted to draft Hall of Fame edge rusher DeMarcus Ware. He had a chance to do it with the 10th pick. Ware was sitting right there for the taking. Instead, Millen said he was talked into USC receiver Mike Williams, who hadn’t played football in over a year. Williams wound up becoming one of the biggest busts in Lions history, and Ware was taken by the Cowboys one pick later.

What if the Lions had drafted Aaron Donald?

There’s a lot of hindsight on this one. The Lions took Eric Ebron with the 10th pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, and despite all the revisionist history, the pick made a lot of sense for Detroit, and Ebron was going that high regardless of Detroit picking him or not.

At the time, the Lions had Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley, and they felt pretty good about getting Suh signed to a new long-term deal. So Donald just didn’t make sense. Then everything fell apart, and fans blamed Ebron for it because he had a few drops per season. But what if the Lions doubled down and they had Donald and Suh on that line in 2014? Man, that’s a good team.

What if the Pistons took Carmelo Anthony in 2004?

This is the biggest what-if in Detroit sports history, if you ask me. If the Pistons had taken Anthony just months before their championship season instead of Darko Milicic, we’re talking about beating the Spurs in the 2005 finals and going back to the finals in 2006 and 2007, too. I absolutely believe that they would have gone on a generational run. We know they kept going back to the Eastern Conference Finals. With Anthony, they get over the hump.

What if Wayne Gretzky gets traded to Detroit instead of Los Angeles?

Way back in the 80s, when the Edmonton Oilers were making the weirdest decision in hockey history by trading away the greatest player the sport has ever seen right after winning another Stanley Cup, the initial trade was supposed to send Gretzky to the Red Wings. However, he had some control over where he was going, and his dad told him there could only be one Gordie Howe; he chose the Kings. Plus, the Kings sent the Oilers $15 million in addition to picks and players, and the Wings were never going to do that.

But there could have been a Red Wings team with Wayne Gretzky and Steve Yzerman. Imagine the number of Stanley Cups they could have rounded up together, along with the Russian 5. Man, the greatest team ever assembled. But hey, they still wound up being good, though.

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