The Detroit Lions enjoyed a true storybook season in 2023, winning their division for the first time since the early 1990s and advancing to the NFC Championship game. While they ultimately fell short, expectations are high for the Lions entering the 2024 season. The recent injury update on defensive tackle DJ Reader will have fans fired up.
Reader, whom the Lions signed during the offseason, has passed his physical and has been removed from the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list, the team announced. He had been on the shelf after having suffered a torn quad during a Cincinnati Bengals game this past December.
Having Reader back on the field will be a significant boost for young players like Brodric Martin. He said that having an experienced veteran as a teammate is like having an extra coach to learn from, via John Maakaron of Sports Illustrated.
“It’s like having another coach, you know, who’s doing it right now. He’s been doing it for a long time. Who has done it at a high level,” Martin said after the preseason finale. “Essentially just having him out there and helping, picking his brain or how he would play certain blocks and stuff like that. It’s definitely, definitely good to have him out there.”
Meanwhile, Reader recently explained that he is looking forward to being able to suit up in Detroit’s season opener against former Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press.
“That’s just one of those things,” he said. “I’m just working every day to see where I’m at, and just kind of where your feet land is where you land. So I haven’t put on the pads like the other guys yet so I’m just kind of in that realm.”
DJ Reader arrives in Detroit with over NFL 100 games under his belt
A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, Reader attended Grimsley High School before moving on to Clemson University. In college, he played football and baseball before ultimately choosing football as his career path.
Selected 166th overall (5th round) by the Houston Texans in the 2016 NFL Draft, he spent the first four years of his career with them before signing a four-year deal with the Bengals in 2020. In 105 career NFL games, Reader has started 96 of them while registering 277 tackles (149 single) and 9.5 sacks.
