The speculation leading up to this past weekend’s preseason game against the Oakland Raiders was that former 2011 first round pick Nick Fairley had been banished to the second team defense.
Well speculation no more, Lions head coach Jim Caldwell addressed the situation and confirmed the move (via ESPN):
“If you’re asking me whether or not Fairley is going to be a starter, he’s not starting right now,” Caldwell said Monday. “He’s second team.
“But the rest of it, we’ll look. It’s a long week. We’ve got a lot of work to do in between and typically like most games, we’ll take a look at where we are and make an assessment on that toward the end of the week.”
Fairley started the first preseason game against Cleveland but in the week after was seen playing mostly with the second team defense during training camp. The Lions also started veteran CJ Mosley against Oakland in place of Fairley who played in 15-snaps which was lowest total for any defensive tackle while recording one tackle and seen getting pushed off the ball. Nonetheless Caldwell said Fairley played ‘better’ but that was the extent of his evaluation while Fairley declined to comment altogether.
Apparently Fairley’s demotion stems from his weight. Heading into camp Fairley was reported to be under 300 pounds but however raised concerns as to whether or not he was under weight. As camp progressed Fairley got up to 305 which still seemed acceptable up until after that Cleveland game last week.
So it appears maybe Fairley wasn’t motivated by the Lions not picking up his 2015 option?
