Lions are losing bodies on both sides of the ball before a preseason snap has been played

Brian Branch is out. Giovanni Manu is on the Non-Football Injury list. Alim McNeill left practice early Thursday and is now questionable. Three different position groups, three different problems, all hitting at once. As I've been tracking since camp opened, the secondary situation was already fragile before any of this — Arnold gone, Kendrick Law on IR — and now Branch joining that list makes a thin cornerback room genuinely concerning.

The offensive and defensive line news is newer and, in some ways, harder to read. Manu's NFI designation is particularly strange because it surfaced after he'd been practicing, which doesn't make the situation feel routine. McNeill is the Lions' starting nose tackle, and losing him for any stretch of camp means the interior defensive line is working through its reps without its anchor.

Detroit signed Devin White on Saturday to shore up the linebacker group, a reasonable move given that rookie Jimmy Rolder is also expected to miss significant time. But adding a veteran linebacker doesn't patch a corner depth chart or keep an offensive tackle healthy. The Lions have shown they'll move when they need to — the White signing happened fast — but some of these holes don't have obvious fixes sitting on the open market right now.

Camp is early. Players come off these lists. But the Lions went 9-8 last year because they couldn't hold leads when it mattered, and that kind of fragility tends to get worse, not better, when you're sorting out your depth chart in August.