Notes: Lions’ young WRs have opportunity to ‘make a name for themselves’ vs. GB

Who will shine on Monday Night Football in Tyrell Williams’ absence?

In a media appearance on Friday, Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn was asked about the situation at wide receiver heading into the team’s second game of the season. The receiving corps will be without top veteran starter Tyrell Williams, who remains out of action in concussion protocol after sustaining an injury in Week 1’s home loss against San Francisco. Lynn believes a veteran like Williams will be “hard to replace at this point with a young group, but you know, guys gotta step up and start making a name for themselves at some point. Might as well start this week.”

When prompted to identify specific players he thought might contribute to filling the void left by Williams’ absence, Lynn spoke highly of both Trinity Benson and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

“You know, Benson is getting better every practice,” the coach said. “You know, we threw him out there last week — I think he’d been here for three days, and he did a good job for the length of time that he’s been here — but he’s gotten better.” After a thoughtful pause, Lynn offered that blocking terror “Saint” will also see more snaps on offense.

Perhaps the most surprising comment though, came at the very end of the answer to the question. MLive’s Kyle Meinke and others also noticed when coach Lynn said he believes Tom Kennedy will play this week.

Right now, it’s hard to tell what the team will do come Monday; predicting what they would do at wide receiver was already tough before Williams’ injury. The team just recently brought back veteran Geronimo Allison to the practice squad, so there are options. As Lynn told the media, “we’ll see what happens.”

Now, on to the rest of today’s Notes:

• Sometimes Packers fans can do good things too:

• Matt Waldman’s Rookie Scouting Report podcast had Dwain McFarland from Pro Football Focus on to talk about D’Andre Swift and Jamaal Williams’ utilization in a fantasy football context. The site is a bit unusual and asks you to open the audio in a pop-up player or download the entire file, but the Lions material starts about 10 minutes in and there’s some Hockenson discussion afterward, stretching it all the way to about the 43:30 mark. So, kind of a lot about the Lions!

• This is a pretty interesting bit of historical trivia. From Larry Mayer of the Chicago Bears’ official team site, the NFL was officially founded on this day in 1920.

• Presented without comment:

• Former Lions defensive tackle Roger Brown, who played for the team in the 1960s with the Fearsome Foursome and was inducted into the team’s Pride of the Lions in 2018, passed away on Friday at age 84.

• Here is your weekly hilarious Jamaal Williams sound bite: