Overview
- Tom Kennedy suffered a season-ending MCL injury in Detroit’s win over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, Oct. 11, creating an immediate vacancy as the team’s primary punt returner.
- After workouts on Thursday, Oct. 15, the Lions evaluated DeAndre Carter and Steven Sims and multiple outlets reported that Carter is signing to Detroit’s practice squad, citing NFL insider Tom Pelissero.
- Carter is a longtime special-teams veteran who has played in more than 100 NFL games and logged several thousand kickoff and punt return yards across multiple teams.
- The practice-squad signing allows the Lions to elevate Carter on game days if needed and gives him the team’s bye week to learn Detroit’s return schemes before the Oct. 25 matchup with Green Bay.
- Adding Carter aims to protect offensive contributors from taking return duties—Amon-Ra St. Brown briefly handled punts after Kennedy’s injury—and to preserve roster depth and special-teams continuity.