Monday recap: Melifonwu suffers another injury, Smith gets favorable review after debut

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Allen Park — The frustrating career of Ifeatu Melifonwu has taken another unfortunate turn.

Nearing his 2024 debut after a season-long battle with a nagging ankle injury, the Detroit Lions safety popped up on last week’s injury report with a finger injury that limited him on Thursday and sidelined him Friday.

Not realizing the severity of the new ailment, Lions coach Dan Campbell was asked if Melifonwu could be part of the solution at linebacker after Alex Anzalone suffered a broken forearm on Sunday. Campbell quickly shut the idea down.

“Look, because this is going to come up anyway, (Melifonwu) had something come up and he won’t be ready for a while,” Campbell said. “He’s not going to be ready for a while.”

Melifonwu was entering the home stretch of his three-week practice acclimation window but will need to be shut down again. Campbell said there's still a chance the defensive back will play this season, but the team will have to designate him to return from injured reserve a second time, using another one of the team’s eight allotted slots.

Since his rookie year, the 2021 third-round pick has battled injury after injury. As a rookie, he missed half the season with a quad strain. His second season was marred by a training camp hamstring strain that carried into the regular season before a rolled ankle knocked him out another three games. Both issues slowed his acclimation to a new position after he was shifted from cornerback to safety that offseason. Then, in 2023, he suffered a broken hand in practice, delaying a planned midseason insertion into the starting lineup.

Once cleared, Melifonwu was a key piece to Detroit’s strong finish last season. Across the final five games of the regular season, he recorded 19 tackles, 3.0 sacks, seven pass defenses and two interceptions.

In training camp, he was trending toward a backup/rotational role, repping with the second-team defense behind starters Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch, who had moved from the nickel spot he manned as a rookie.

Ready to rumble

Another player on injured reserve, Brodric Martin, has reached the end of his acclimation window. Campbell indicated the plan will be to activate the second-year defensive tackle to the 53-man roster this week.

“Yeah, he’s been doing a good job,” Campbell said. “He’s done a solid job out there on (scout team), giving us a good look, and trying to work his craft. So I think we would like to get him on the roster here and at least have him, and then just see where it goes.”

Martin, a third-round pick in 2023, was immediately labeled as a developmental project after he was selected out of Western Kentucky. He appeared in just three games game last season, logging a meager 28 defensive snaps.

He had shown noticeable improvement during his second offseason and was projected to have a backup role behind starters DJ Reader and Alim McNeill. A hyperextended knee, suffered during the preseason, has kept the young lineman on the shelf.

Replacing a key cog

With Anzalone expected to be out the next 6-8 weeks, he’ll join Derrick Barnes and Jalen Reeves-Maybin on injured reserve. That’s a heavy hit to one position group, particularly since Anzalone was an every-down player and Barnes was logging close to 90% of the defensive snaps to begin this season.

Jack Campbell is expected to step in and replace Anzalone as the unit's primary communicator, wearing the green-dot helmet that puts him in radio contact with the sideline during games.

Dan Campbell said it won’t be easy to replace Anzalone’s curated connection with defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, but Jack Campbell is the best option they have. Plus, they planned for the possibility during training camp.

“He’s a guy who understands the game,” Dan Campbell said. “He is a smart football player, he studies it, he works at it, he was that way when he walked in. He’s an instinctive player that really understands ball.

“…He’s been right in (Anzalone’s) hip pocket and he watches that and he learns and he listens,” the coach continued. “I mean we were doing these in the spring, Alex wasn’t even here yet. Alex came in a couple of weeks later and we were doing these situational scenarios where we were letting (QB quarterback ) Goff call it and Jack call it on defense. So, this isn’t the first time he’s kind of had to take a little bit of a role like that and he’s going to be fine as far as that. He’ll step right into that, and he’ll embrace it, and I think you’ll see him thrive.”

In addition to Campbell, the linebacker, the Lions will be looking to Malcolm Rodriguez and Ben Niemann to step up and take on bigger roles. The team could also potentially look to play more nickel defense, depending on the opponent.

Quality debut

Whether it was always the plan, or the lopsided score allowed the Lions to give him a longer leash, recently acquired defensive end Za’Darius Smith received a pretty heavy workload on Sunday, logging 37 defensive snaps.

I asked Campbell what he thought of the performance after reviewing the film.

“I thought he did some good things for us,” Campbell said. “It was good to have him out there. I thought, really like we talked about last week, just be a piece of this puzzle.

“He’s a guy that’s played, he is instinctive, he doesn’t stay blocked long, he’s really good with his hands,” Campbell said. “Like I said, he can set an edge in the run game and he’s really good at working games with (McNeill) Mac and Reader and those guys. He’s got a knack for those things. So, I think, first outing with him, I thought it was good. I think he fits right in with us.”