Lions Rule Out Three Starters for the Trip to Munich

Detroit's trip to Germany got thinner on Thursday. The Lions ruled out cornerback D.J. Reed with a hip injury, center Cade Mays with an ankle injury and safety Kerby Joseph, and none of the three will travel with the team to Munich.

Reed and Mays are the fresh losses. Both were hurt in the Lions' November 1 win over Minnesota, and both already missed the Miami game. Losing a starting corner and the starting center in the same fortnight is the kind of attrition that changes play calls, not just depth charts — especially the center, in a loud road environment an ocean from home.

Joseph's case is the strangest and the saddest. The safety hasn't played in more than a year because of a cartilage condition in his left knee. He's still on the reserve/PUP list, and on Thursday he was a full participant in practice — a genuinely encouraging sign wrapped inside a hard deadline. Joseph must be activated by November 18 or he can't play the rest of the season.

So Detroit's week runs on two clocks. One is the Munich game, which it will play without three starters. The other is a paperwork deadline six days later that decides whether a full participant at practice gets to be a football player again this year or waits for next season.

The rest of Thursday's report leaned Detroit's way. Jared Goff, limited Wednesday with a chest issue, was a full participant. Amon-Ra St. Brown was limited for a second straight day with a rib injury, a situation worth watching, while Brian Branch, DJ Wonnum and Jacob Saylors all practiced in full. Running back Sione Vaki missed a second straight practice.

The Munich setting adds one more variable Detroit didn't choose. International games compress the week — travel, time zones, a foreign stadium's surface and noise — and they punish thin rosters hardest, because the replacement players a team would normally elevate from its practice squad are an ocean away from their routine. Detroit's secondary will play this game with backups at corner, a season-long absence at safety, and no easy reinforcements beyond the men who boarded the plane.

International games test rosters differently — the travel, the routine, the unfamiliar stadium. The Lions are bringing a thinner secondary and a backup center to all of it, and leaving a safety at home whose season now depends on a date circled in pen: November 18.