Detroit, MI
Instant analysis: How CB Terrion Arnold will impact the Detroit Lions
With a heavy early run on offensive players in the 2024 NFL Draft, the Detroit Lions got aggressive and traded up to acquire a player that most experts believed shouldn’t have been available. After executing a deal with the Dallas Cowboys, the Lions acquired pick No. 24 and selected Alabama cornerback Terrion Arnold.
“He fits us like a glove,” Lions general manager Brad Holmes said of Arnold.
Pro ready habits, mentality
For those who wanted Jaylon Johnson (Bears cornerback) in free agency, well you just got him in the draft with the addition of Arnold. A student of the game, Arnold’s passion for football runs deep, and he possesses the confidence you would expect from a two-year starter at Alabama.
A film room junkie, Arnold is highly intelligent, competitive, and mentally tough. He prepares like a professional, is open to criticism, and has the awareness to implement what he is being taught. Holmes made a point of telling the media that he saw noticeable, incremental progress throughout Arnold’s development which points to his unlimited ceiling.
Holmes also added the fact that Arnold possesses a lot of significant traits that illustrate that he is wired the right way, including being “gritty” and playing with “a challenge mentality.”
Coverage scheme, positional range
Alabama played more zone last season than they have in previous seasons, leading to a wealth of experience in both zone and press man coverage schemes. While he’s comfortable in both schemes, he does prefer to play in more man concepts.
“I prefer man coverage,” Arnold told Justin Melo of the Draft Network. “It’s special to take another man’s willpower away from him in man coverage. No matter what, you can’t do anything with me in man coverage. In zone coverage, sometimes you get those softer cushion routes and the receiver can find a hole in the zone. They can complete a pass in that situation. But man-on-man coverage, that’s dog-on-dog. Let’s find out who the better player is.”
Arnold would often match up with the opponent’s top wide receivers and is comfortable following them all over the field, including into the slot. Arnold was recruited to play safety but quickly shifted to corner under Alabama coach Nick Saban. That safety experience has given him a unique experience to understand how to function out of the slot, something most pure outside corners don’t possess.
Skill set
In coverage, Arnold is fluid and smooth, plays with loose hips, and is sticky in coverage. His natural instincts are to turn his head and locate the football, while his film preparation helps him always be in the right spot to make impact plays. He has tremendous ball skills, including five interceptions and 17 pass breakups in 2023.
He’s physical in coverage, challenging wide receivers for jump balls, while also providing excellent run support. He is a sound tackler in space, plays downhill, and hits like a safety.
With his preparation, range, and ball skills, Arnold makes plays all over the field.
Challenge to start
Arnold is expected to immediately challenge for a starting role in the Lions defense.
This offseason, the Lions made a point of adding talent to their cornerback room. They traded for Carlton Davis, signed Amik Robertson, and re-signed Emmanuel Moseley. Davis has locked up a starting role, but Robertson and Moseley were expected to challenge to start on the opposite corner after the release of Cam Sutton. Now with Arnold in the fold, the Lions starting competition just got a whole lot deeper.
Detroit — The Tigers will get pitcher Jack Flaherty back in the starting rotation for a start in the series finale against the Houston Astros on Sunday, manager AJ Hinch confirmed on Saturday.
Flaherty, who has been on the 15-day injured list since June 13 with a strain of the peroneal tendons in his left foot/ankle, will get back on the active roster with a yet-to-be-announced move on Sunday morning, as it’s the first day he’s eligible to come back from the IL.
“He’s good to go for tomorrow,” Hinch said. “We can’t make it official until the morning. But yeah, we’re fully expecting him to be good to go.”
Flaherty completed a rehab assignment with Double-A Erie on Tuesday, throwing 5⅔ innings of two-run ball with seven strikeouts.
That outing and the lack of any hang-ups in the days since have Flaherty on the precipice of his return. Hinch was hopeful that Flaherty could make his return on Sunday, and a few days earlier he recalled some words of motivation he gave the pitcher in a postgame handshake line.
“I told him, I was standing in the high-five line yesterday, that we’re getting closer, closer to him being back,” Hinch said. “So, he’s definitely the right amount of being agitated and wanting to pitch.”
With Flaherty back in the mix, Hinch is unsure if Detroit will stick with a six-man pitching rotation of Tarik Skubal, Framber Valdez, Casey Mize, Troy Melton, Keider Montero and Flaherty or take it back down to five. The latter option likely requires Montero to move into a bullpen role.
As of Saturday, the inflection point on any decision will be the series opener against the Texas Rangers on Thursday.
The plan is for Flaherty to pitch the finale against Houston. Detroit then travels to New York for a three-game series against the Yankees where it’s set up for Mize, Skubal and Melton to pitch Monday through Wednesday.
That Thursday opener against the Rangers, where Hinch will make a call between Valdez and Montero, sits in an odd pocket of the schedule, too, as the two teams are off on Friday before completing a three-game series over the weekend. That’s because there’s a Round of 32 game in the FIFA World Cup taking place in Arlington, Texas, that afternoon.
And with a day off the following Monday, Detroit has two days of rest in a four-day span after coming off a 14-game stretch without an off day.
“We’ll have a decision to make on Thursday, going to Texas,” Hinch said. “We can bring Framber back on regular rest. We could put Keider in there, do the six man. We’re kind of considering all of our options. Going with Jack coming in tomorrow kind of creates that decision for the back end of that. Then we have two off days surrounding the weekend. It’s really weird with the World Cup. We have that weird mid-series off day. So we’ll see.”
Hinch shares updates on Perez, Báez
The timeline for Wenceel Perez and Javier Báez to rejoin the active roster remains murky, though both are progressing in recovering from their respective injuries, Hinch said.
Perez, who suffered a fractured orbital bone on his left side after a resistance band under tension released and hit him the face last week, is on the 60-day injured list. Hinch shared that things are going slow in Perez’s recovery as all parties are basically waiting for the fracture to heal and Perez’s vision to be fully restored.
Perez is back in Detroit, but is otherwise laying low on any sort of rehab until the injury itself subsides enough.
“There’s a little bit of unknown on how long this can take but given — I mean, it’s like two-sided,” Hinch said. “You want everybody to know he’s safe and out of harm’s way. He’s just mending slowly in that. And the swelling, the vision, not disrupting the healing of the orbital bone, it’s a lot more sensitive than just getting hit in the face.”
Báez is getting back to some physical activity after taking some prolonged rest, which came as a result of his sprained right ankle not responding well to earlier rehab.
Báez has been on the IL since late April and got moved to the 60-day IL on June 11.
And despite the need for serious ramping up, Báez’s return to some light physical activity is a welcome sign for Hinch and Co. for an injury they worried could be much more serious.
“He’s doing well and going to continue on with his rehab and getting back into baseball stuff. There’s jump tests, there’s running, there’s the hitting, again,” Hinch said. “So the good news is he’s not shut down. That’s what our fear was. The continual delay is it has just been a complicated injury.”
Andrew Graham is a freelance writer.
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