Detroit Lions vs. Kansas City Chiefs

The Detroit Lions are in Kansas City today to take on the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs in the second preseason game for both clubs.

The Lions dropped last week’s preseason debut, 14-3, to the New York Giants and will be looking for more consistent play and production in all three phases today.

Here are five things I’ll be watching out for in this matchup:

Lions head coach Dan Campbell said earlier in the week he was thinking of playing some starters, but a final decision would come down to how he felt practice went over the course of the week and the work the starters got.

“I know that Coach Reid always plays his guys, and I’ll go back to what I said the other day, honestly, so much of this for me is going to be about what we get out of (Monday) and then the scrimmage that we have (Wednesday). That will have a huge bearing, I know for me, on what we do with these starters,” Campbell said.

“There again, if I feel like we need quality work on all three phases and you put enough reps on them, then we probably won’t play a lot of these guys. But if not, we feel like they do need a little bit more with some guys, then we’ll play them. It really is that simple.”

In the second preseason game last year vs. Jacksonville, Campbell opted not to play any of his starters, but they also participated in joint practices against the Jaguars leading up to that game. Kansas City declined Detroit’s offer to conduct joint practices this week.

Detroit canceled their planned scrimmage on Wednesday because of the number of injuries they are currently dealing with. That could affect Campbell’s decision too, not wanting any more key contributors added to the injury report so close to the regular season.