When Kalif Raymond went down with an ankle injury in the Detroit Lions\u2019 Week 12 win over the New York Giants, it appeared they had lost one of their biggest weapons on special teams. While this hasn\u2019t been Raymond\u2019s best year, he\u2019s a two-time All Pro and even had a punt return touchdown earlier this season.<\/p>\n
But in the two weeks Raymond has been sidelined, Tom Kennedy has been a revelation. A wideout that has spent the majority of his seven-year career on the practice squad, Kennedy finally got significant action as the team\u2019s kick returner, and he didn\u2019t squander it. In his first game, he managed an average 27.0 yards per kick return, but had a huge 21-yard punt return (on top of four big catches for 36 yards on offense). Then, last week against the Dallas Cowboys, Kennedy had his breakout game. In his three kick return attempts, he brought them all over the team\u2019s 40-yard line, averaging an impressive 40 yards per return on Thursday night. He added another 21-yard punt return, as well.<\/p>\n
With Raymond returning to practice this week, the Lions face a good problem: keep Kennedy at the return game or go back to Raymond. It turns out, the answer is likely both. On Thursday, special teams coordinator Dave Fipp revealed that Kennedy has done enough to earn the kick returner job (although it\u2019s unclear who will be back there with him\u2014be it Jacob Saylors or Raymond). But when Raymond is healthy enough to play, he\u2019ll retain punt return duties.<\/p>\n
\u201cKalif\u2019s obviously an incredible player for us, so I would see him starting off as our punt returner and I would definitely see Tom Kennedy being part of the kick return game,\u201d Fipp said. \u201cLeaf back, I would see him returning punts for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fipp raved about Kennedy\u2019s story as one of hard work and perseverance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how ecstatic I am for Tom Kennedy,\u201d Fipp said. \u201cI mean there\u2019s nobody who deserves the attention and the recognition more than him in this building. I mean a guy who\u2019s just worked his tail off every single day the whole time he\u2019s been here. Never ever complained about the reps he\u2019s getting, the opportunity he\u2019s getting. Whether he knows he can do something better than maybe some other guy who\u2019s getting his shot before him. And then for him to get the opportunity and then go out there and make the most of it, you\u2019ve got to give him a lot of credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kennedy has been humble about his success. After the game, he gave full credit to his blocking, saying his role was just to run with speed and decisiveness. But his goal has always been to be ready and take advantage when his number is finally called.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny time you\u2019re up and playing, you just want to be able to contribute in whatever way to help the team win. So, just happy I\u2019ve been able to do that, honestly,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n
His opportunity will continue this week against a really good Los Angeles Rams team. Detroit will need every extra advantage they can get as 5.5-point road underdogs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Kalif Raymond went down with an ankle injury in the Detroit Lions\u2019 Week 12 win over the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":440762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[27705,27706,1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-440761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-detroit-lions-news","9":"tag-detroit-lions-quotes","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115702581517582844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}