Quick hitters: Lions’ Rakestraw, Nowaske in line for more opportunities; Campbell sees coverage improvements

Allen Park — Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell met with the media on Monday afternoon. Here are the noteworthy items from that session.

● Let’s start with some injury updates. OK, maybe not so much updates as acknowledgements some guys are not 100% healthy, to varying degrees.

Campbell was asked about three players — center Cade Mays, safety Thomas Harper and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown — but was light on details with each.

Regarding Mays, Campbell said it would be a tall task for the lineman to be available this week. We’ll give the coach the benefit of the doubt with this one, since Mays isn’t eligible to be activated until the following week.

Even that sounds unlikely. Campbell noted that Mays is continuing to trend in the positive direction and the goal has always been to get him back after the team’s Week 6 bye.

With Harper, who landed on injured reserve Saturday with what the team listed as an ankle injury, Campbell wouldn’t commit to the young defender returning this season.

“Yeah, Harper, I mean he’s, I don't know what's the Harper deal,” Campbell said. “We'll see. He’s IR right now. So, we'll see on that. I just know he won't be here for four weeks or whatever.”

It was difficult to get a read on whether the coach was frustrated with the player or with trying to project a timetable.

Finally, regarding St. Brown, he played a handful of snaps fewer than normal in Sunday’s win over the Jets, and was spotted getting looked at by the medical staff in the locker room after the game.

Campbell downplayed any concern.

“He just had a little something,” he said. “I don't think it's a huge thing. Our guys today had him checked out. You know Saint, he doesn’t want to get anything checked out. He's fine. You ask him, he's fine, so I think we'll be okay there.”

● As is typical during a postgame press conference after a win, Campbell opens up with a lengthy list of players who had key roles in the victory. Monday’s group included Jahmyr Gibbs, Jared Goff, Chuck Clark, Trevor Nowaske, D.J. Wonnum, the entire offensive line, the entire defensive line, Jack Campbell, Ennis Rakestraw, Christian Izien, Sione Vaki, Jimmy Rolder, Nowaske again, for his special teams contributions this time, and Eric O’Neill.

I wanted to double back to Nowaske and Rakestraw, given both were playing expanded roles on defense coming out of the coaching staff’s deep dive last week.

Campbell noted both players are in line to maintain their expanded roles.

“Nowaske just does everything right,” Campbell said. “He just does, and he's been doing that now for a while. Came in, had a really good camp, and he's a very disciplined player. He's grown a ton since he's been here and just turned himself into a real solid player.

“He just does things right,” Campbell said. “That whole thing we talk about, be where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there, that's him. I mean, he's exactly where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be there, and he makes plays.”

With Rakestraw, he served as the outside cornerback opposite DJ Reed in nickel packages. That was a big jump up the depth chart after the former second-round pick was a healthy scratch the first two weeks.

“Rake’s earned the right to get out there a little bit more at outside corner here, so I think there's a chance he gets a few more reps than he got last week, certainly,” Campbell said. “…I think Rake's got a chance, man. He's got the ability and he wants to do it right. He works at it, and I do, I think the more opportunities he gets, the better he'll get.

“Look, he's got some cover ability now,” Campbell said. “He's got some stickiness to him, and that was promising. That was promising yesterday, because I just thought he was strong at the catch point and he was in phase.”

● Speaking of the coverage, there were obvious concerns from the outside after Detroit coughed up a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter. Campbell didn’t dismiss those, but offered a glass-half-full perspective.

“Coverage was better,” Campbell said. “We were stickier, but we lost a lot of one-on-ones. So that's the next step. OK, hey, now we're in phase, that's good. But now we got to win some of those. We have to win some.

“There were some penalties that showed up at the worst times, just some of those at the catch point,” Campbell continued. “But, man, that's a step in the right direction, and really that's what bled in the third down in red zone. That's where those came up in the pass game, some of those one-on-ones, but we can grow from there.”

● Campbell had a lot of positive praise for the offense after scoring 31 points for the third straight week. He loved the efficiency in both the pass and run game, with the latter close to 70%.

The coach was also pleased by the lack of three-and-outs. However, he didn’t like the lack of points the first two drives, due to some blown protections. And with the procedural error on fourth down that resulted in a turnover on downs in the fourth quarter, Campbell acknowledged it was inexcusable.

“To me, that was the big one,” Campbell said. “We cannot have that happen. We have a chance to turn it into a two-score game, possibly, and we have to. We have to be able to close that out, get that first down. We mis-ID'd it, illegal formation, the whole thing. We're better than that, so we'll clean that up.