By Michael Stets
ALLEN PARK–The Lions will be without their starting left tackle for the remainder of OTAs, Veteran mini camp next week and into the start of training camp.
Taylor Decker, the team’s 2016 first-round draft pick, underwent shoulder surgery on Monday, Lions head coach Jim Caldwell informed the media on Tuesday prior to OTAs.
“Taylor Decker won’t be at practice today,” Caldwell said. “He had surgery yesterday. Shoulder injury. He got it repaired. We will see how he progresses along. The doctors certainly will give us updates as he goes. But he injured it in practice last week. We got it repaired yesterday and he’s on the road to recovery.”
No timetable was given for Decker’s return. But wIth training camp on the horizon, and the regular season just a little over three months away, it is also possible that Decker could end up missing some games at the start of the year.
“Not certain,” Caldwell said, when asked how long Decker would be out of action. “We will probably give you an update when we get back to training camp.”
“Any time that you have surgery you just don’t know details of how long it will actually take,” said Caldwell, when asked if he was concerned Decker’s recovery might linger into the regular season. “LIke I said we will update you in the fall.”
Decker, 23, played in all 16 games as a rookie and played very well throughout his first NFL season. The former Ohio State Buckeye was given a 82.8 overall grade by Pro Football Focus. He allowed 4.5 sacks in 2016.
Since Decker is a starter with one full year under his belt and knows the offense, Caldwell thinks that will be beneficial when he’s physically ready to play again.
“He played a lot of football for us, so I think that certainly bodes well,” he said. “It’s a little bit different for a guy that didn’t play much for you, expecting him to do much for you in the fall. I think he is one of those guys that has proven that he can play in this league. He’s getting better. He’s coming along, making more and more progress. I think you will see, obviously, right now that he is going to miss quite a few practices during this segment of this week. He’s going to miss four practices. And then next week he’ll miss mini camp practices, which will be a total of somewhere around five. So there’s a few practices he’s going to miss and we’ll see what happens during training camp.”
On injuries, Caldwell said, “It’s kind of the nature of our game. You have to adjust. That’s one of the things that I think the personnel office always does a good job of. I think our players do a tremendous job of. We will adjust and keep moving.”
Caldwell said the team is “always looking at options” as far as the team possibly adding another tackle. Second-year lineman Joe Dahl, and veteran Cornelius Lucas will be first in line to play the position during Decker’s absence. Corey Robinson, a 2015 seventh-round draft pick, is on the depth chart behind them.