Lions Deliver Promising Injury News on Versatile Linebacker

After several weeks of setbacks on defense, the Detroit Lions are finally getting a big addition.

The team announced on Tuesday that linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez was coming off the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list, paving the way for his return to the field for the first time in nearly a year. Rodriguez has been an important reserve and special teams player and appears ready to return for the home stretch of the season.

Lions Bring Back Malcolm Rodriguez

The 26-year-old linebacker has been out since suffering a torn ACL last Thanksgiving, which led to a long recovery. Rodriguez saw time on defense last season, making 43 tackles with two sacks and a pass defensed in 10 games prior to his injury.

The Lions have suffered several key injuries this season, especially in their secondary, but Rodriguez’s return could bring an important element back to the defense. Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard has been high on Rodriguez, praising his preparation and focus and saying last year that he believes Rodriguez is good enough to start.

“I’m always reminded, even last year (2023), before you guys all said it — Malcolm Rodgiuez is a starter in my mind,” Sheppard said last season as the team’s linebackers coach, via MLive.com. “And I have never wavered from that since his rookie year, when he took over and hit the scene running and took every veteran spot in the room until right now. He’s a starting-caliber linebacker, and now he’s ascending to a place where a lot of people are viewing him a on the topper end of linebackers of the league when you really watch him play.”

Rodriguez has also earned praise from special teams coordinator Dave Fipp for his contributions on return and coverage units.

“He’s a great player, or has been a very good player on teams, I’ll say that for sure. Anytime you get a good player back, that obviously helps the whole group,” Fipp said, via SI.com. “So, it’ll be good. The better player that’s out there, the less load everyone else has to carry. So, it helps pass the load or share the load around.”

Lions Facing Unfamiliar Spot

After winning the NFC North in back-to-back seasons leading up to this year, the Lions have stumbled this season and fell out of the playoff bracket entirely with last week’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

They have an opportunity to rebound on Sunday against a struggling New York Giants team, though head coach Dan Campbell said they need to turn things around on offense. Campbell took over play-calling duties from John Morton earlier this month, but said his own calls contributed to the loss against the Eagles.

Campbell added that the Lions have yet to play their best football this season.

“I’m still to that point where I feel like we still have not quite played our best game, our best games. And I’m talking about in all three phases,” Campbell said, via MLive.com. “That’s the one thing, win, lose, where you just want to feel like, alright man, all three units contributed and we really complemented each other. Chicago was pretty dang good, Washington was good last week, but there were some things we wished we could have done a little bit better. It wasn’t like that in all three units, and that was good, believe me. But I just really feel like we haven’t played our best ball yet, collectively across all three units.”

Celtics beat Nets to move above .500 for the 1st time this season

Jaylen Brown scored 29 points, Payton Pritchard had 22 points and 10 rebounds, and the Boston Celtics beat the Brooklyn Nets 113-99 on Tuesday night to move above .500 for the first time this season.

Derrick White added 15 points for the Celtics, who won their third straight game to improve to 8-7. They played the Nets even for about three quarters before smothering them defensively in the fourth, allowing just one basket for the first 10 minutes of the period.

Michael Porter Jr. scored 25 points for the Nets, his career-best seventh straight game with at least 20. But after his 3-pointer gave Brooklyn a 90-89 lead with 9:08 left, the Nets didn’t make another basket until 1:56 remained.

Day’Ron Sharpe added 16 points for the Nets, who fell to 2-12 overall and 0-7 at home.

The Celtics started the season 0-3 and then won their next three. They dropped the next two games and hadn’t gotten their record back to even again until beating the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday.

Porter had 18 points at halftime and Pritchard scored 17. The teams combined for 22 2-pointers and 21 3-pointers in the first half, which ended with Boston leading 62-61.

The Celtics opened their first double-digit cushion when Brown followed a three-point play with a 3-pointer to cap an 8-0 burst and make it 75-65 with 7 1/2 minutes remaining in the third. Brooklyn cut it to one late in the period before Brown made another 3-pointer to send the Celtics to the fourth with an 89-85 edge.

With the Celtics leading 97-92, they chased down three missed shots on one possession to set up White’s 3-pointer. After a Brooklyn free throw, he made another 3 to make it 103-93. Brown’s 3 with 2:55 left capped an 18-3 run to make it 107-93.

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