Detroit Lions film review: What did the tape reveal about Christian Mahogany's first start?
Allen Park — While the Detroit Lions defense has needed to mix and match pieces for weeks to address a steady stream of injuries, the team’s offense has been blessed with relatively steady durability and continuity.
Sure, a guy on that side of the ball has missed a game here or there, but even most of the unit’s backups are familiar faces with known skill sets. Yet Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears offered a new flavor for consumption; the first start for rookie offensive lineman Christian Mahogany.
Filling in for left guard Graham Glasgow, no one outside the building knew what to expect from Mahogany, a sixth-round draft pick out of Boston College who missed training camp and the preseason while battling mononucleosis. Prior to Sunday’s game, he had logged just three offensive snaps, stepping in for a short series after Kevin Zeitler got hit in the eye a couple of weeks back.
Additionally, Mahogany hadn’t played left guard in a game since 2020, his redshirt freshman season in college. But what’s been increasingly clear for several weeks is the rookie has established himself as the top backup on the depth chart, jumping the preferred option to start the year, Kayode Awosika.
And against the Bears, Mahogany showed why he’d earned the team’s trust.
“It was encouraging,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said about the performance. “I did think that he tried to play violent. It was not too big for him.”
For this week’s film review, we rolled through all 65 snaps from the end zone angle — the best vantage point to review offensive line play — to dissect Mahogany’s first extensive workload.