It's the offseason for the Detroit Lions and the rest of the NFL, so it's time to have some fun. That's exactly what our Green Bay Packers beat writer, Wendell Ferreira, is doing with his offseason. 

Ferreira plans to build a mock expansion team in June, and he's going to go about it as if it's actually happening. For those who are unfamiliar with how expansion teams work, they're brand-new teams, and they're populated by using an expansion draft. 

That's where the expansion team will pick players right off of other teams in order to get a 90-man roster. Don't worry, teams can choose players that they want to protect, but they can't protect everyone. 12 players will be made unprotected. We're going to pick those 12 guys. Here are the rules:

1. Each current NFL team has to leave 12 players unprotected.

2. ⁠Players with 0 or 1 accrued seasons are automatically protected and can't be on the list. Players with no-trade clauses can't be added either.

3. ⁠If the player is taken, the expansion team will absorb both his future salaries and signing bonus prorations, so it can be a useful tool to unload veteran contracts. 

4. ⁠The list is final, meaning that teams can't withdraw a player after another one has been selected.

5. ⁠The expansion team can get a maximum of two players from each NFL team, and a maximum of 40 players.

Alright, here we go. By the way, the expansion draft article will be dropping next Monday, so you can see if any of these Lions players make that team. Stay locked to A to Z Sports. 

DL DJ Reader

The Lions don't really have any big contracts with veteran players that they would struggle to get out of, other than this one. Reader is a solid player, but it's not hard to think that he would potentially be a surprise cut this summer if he didn't have a contract that would require the Lions to pay a little over $5 million in dead cap if they made the move. He also has three void years attached that the Lions would probably love to get out of. This fake team would be their chance, and they'd take it. 

OL Kayode Awosika

With the selections of Tate Ratledge and Miles Frazier and Graham Glasgow, and Christian Mahogany being here, it sort of makes Awosika expendable. This is a player that would make sense on an expansion team because he might even get a chance to start there. 

RB Craig Reynolds

Reyolds was the 12th player I chose. This was a lot harder than you might have thought. At the end of the day, I was looking at the roster, and having just three running backs in 2025 is not really that far off from possible. The future is Sione Vaki. 

• WR Ronnie Bell
• DL Myles Adams
• CB Khalil Dorsey
• OL Jamarco Jones
• WR Tom Kennedy
• OL Netane Muti
• LB Anthony Pittman
• WR Malik Taylor
• TE Shane Zylstra

The preseason is now more important for the Lions than ever before

We're not very far away from the Detroit Lions taking the field for the Hall of Fame game in late July. It'll be the first of the four preseason games that the Lions play this year. Since Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes took over the team, the preseason hasn't been a big deal for them. […]