Dan Campbell reveals Lions’ plan for starters in preseason opener vs. Bengals

This offseason, Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell has publicly played with the idea of playing starters in the preseason—a departure from the team’s standard strategy. But when it comes to the team’s preseason opener this upcoming Thursday against the Cincinnati Bengals, it appears most of the team’s starters will not be suited up.

“I really don’t see playing a lot of our guys,” Campbell said. “We’ll play some of them. We’ll play some of our guys that are in these, we’ve got some competitions going on at spots, but you ask about (Jared) Goff, I don’t see Goff playing. And we’ll kind of gauge it as we go here.”

Goff won’t play, but the Lions certainly have an interesting quarterback situation brewing after Teddy Bridgewater’s retirement. Undrafted rookie quarterback Luke Altmyer has been getting second and third-team reps in training camp since Bridgewater’s departure, and he’s set to take a significant amount of snaps on Thursday. However, Campbell said they plan on also playing whichever veteran quarterback they sign—which turned out to be Josh Dobbs—despite joining the team just a few days before the preseason opener.

“Certainly Altmyer’s going to take a heavy load and then anybody else we get, we’ll get them up to speed as fast as we can and give them some reps,” Campbell said.

As for Campbell’s initial intentions on playing starters in the preseason, it appears the Lions coach will consider that in Week 2 of the preseason—their sole home exhibition game against the Commanders on Saturday, August 22.

“I think more of mine are the questions will be coming next week, when we start getting into the Washington week, because that was kind of where I always targeted like, alright, this may be where we need to play our guys,” Campbell said. “That’ll be the first one is kind of where I was thinking.”