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The Detroit Lions continued their preparation for the Arizona Cardinals with a Thursday afternoon practice at the teams Allen Park Performance Center.
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Defensive tackle Tyleik Williams, who missed the first practice of the week with a foot injury, returned to the playing field. He was considered day-to-day with a foot injury suffered last week.
Those not spotted, during the period open to local reporters to observe, included offensive guard Ben Bartch and cornerback Rock Ya-Sin.
Defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard shared prior to practice that he did not just want to just provide lip service to address the key issues. The biggest issue facing the defense is the work being done at practice has not translated well to the field.
“So, I get up here and I recap the game before, and I’m going to do the same. But what I’m not going to do is get up here and read off a stat sheet, a stat column, tell you about how we’ve got to bridge communication, how we’ve got to do this and that,” Sheppard said. “Because at this point, all of it’s lip service. Until it starts to show on Sunday, until the evidence starts to show up at the game, it’s lip service. What we do here, bridging it to the game, it sounds good, but it’s lip service.”
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The former NFL linebacker acknowledged the game against the Panthers did not meet the standards and there needed to evidence of change starting to be showcase out on the playing field.
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“What I will say is we did not play well enough defensively to help this team win that football game Sunday night at Carolina,” said Sheppard. “There were a lot of things in there that we absolutely didn’t like that we turned on the tape as a unit on Monday, hashed out, talked about, and the same thing I told them, it’s lip service. So there has to be real change. It has to be real evidence of change.
“Whether that’s personnel driven, whether that’s some things come out, whatever the case is, something has to change.”
Lions’ Week 5 Thursday Injury Report
Guard Ben Bartch — Foot (NP)
CB Rock Ya-Sin — Hamstring (NP)
DT Tyleik Williams — Foot (LP)
DB Brian Branch — Achilles (LP)
OL Cade Mays — Wrist (LP)
DE DJ Wonnum — Back (LP)
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/lions/onsi as Detroit Lions Week 5 Thursday Injury Report: DT Returns to Practice .
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This story was originally published October 8, 2026 at 12:59 PM.