There's a chain-link fence covered in blue canvas that separates the Lions' practice field from Rotunda Drive in Allen Park. On one side, adults get paid millions of dollars to play a kid's game. On the other, the real world rumbles by. Kalif Raymond was walking off the field one day this summer and started "thinking about what it would be like to drive on the other side of that blue fence and to look in."
"So my biggest challenge this year," he said ahead of his ninth NFL season, "is to continue to grow and to not ever let the tiniest bit of complacency or entitlement into my reps, because I could be on the other side of that fence. Not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s just a blessing to be able to walk on this field."
Seven years ago, Raymond walked off the field for what he thought was the final time. After a game with the Giants in 2017, "I was like, 'I just played my last NFL game.' I actually told myself that in my head," Raymond said.
"Goodness gracious, I was struggling," he said. "I had a lot of fear, a lot of doubt."
And then he had a choice. Raymond could either "go in the tank" and call it quits or empty the tank that offseason. He decided to train so hard that he could accept in good conscious whatever became of his career. He even enlisted the help of family members who fired him punts on a JUGS machine while his mom swatted him with foam pool noodles and yelled in his face as he tried to catch the ball. Raymond still has a video of it on his phone. He re- watched it Saturday night and couldn't help but laugh.
The next afternoon, Raymond took a punt 90 yards to the house in the Lions' rout of the Titans. He piled up 190 return yards, fifth most in NFL history. He also caught a touchdown for the second week in a row. In Detroit's most complete performance of the Dan Campbell-Brad Holmes era, it's fitting that one of the original pieces on the board was ultimately in the center of the locker room accepting a game ball. Naturally, he shouted out his blockers for also playing their tails off on defense.
There's no one who loves his teammates more than Raymond. He celebrated Amon-Ra St. Brown's extension this offseason by surprising the star receiver outside the Lions' facility with balloons, silly string, a bottle of champagne and a group of their fellow receivers. Raymond's teammates hooted and hollered after Sunday's win as Campbell told the story of how Holmes walked into his office in their first offseason in Detroit and told him to "check out this free agent" from the Titans. He was a gadget, Holmes said, mostly a returner, but maybe the Lions could find a role for him on offense.
"I watched 10 plays and I was like, 'Holy sh*t. Whatever it takes, Brad, let's get this guy in here,'" Campbell said.
It didn't take much, a one-year, $1.2 million deal for a player who had 20 NFL catches to his name. Raymond had bounced between five teams over his first five years in the league, spending significantly more time on practice squads than active rosters. He needed an opportunity, the Lions needed players who wouldn't cave under a rebuild. Of the non-draft-picks they imported four years ago, three remain on the roster: Jared Goff, Alex Anzalone and Raymond. The Lions have forged their identity around the selfless, fearless qualities that trio represents. They aren't scared of the work.
Raymond's return skills immediately stood out to Campbell on film. He moves like a water bug. Campbell also noticed the 5'8 receiver running a variety of routes out of motion "and it was just like, 'Whoa!' ... There was a naturalness about him, and you can’t hide from the speed. But it wasn’t like he was just speed. Man, he's a fluid athlete, and at the time we desperately needed it." When Raymond arrived in Detroit that summer, he figured he had two more years to prove he belonged in the NFL before it moved on without him.
"I’m closer to out than I am in," Raymond recalled.
He was the Lions' third-leading receiver in year one, their second-leading receiver and a second-team All-Pro punt returner in year two. He signed a $10.5 million extension ahead of year three that will keep him in Detroit through at least next season. It's hard to envision him anywhere else, because he embodies Campbell's Lions as much as anyone on the team. Raymond has played in every game of the rebuild but one.
"The freaking iron man," Campbell called him. "Does everything you ask, the greatest teammate, works his ass off."
When Campbell wants his young players to understand what it takes, he tells them, "Go talk to Leaf. You want to know reality in this league? He’ll give you some perspective." Undrafted rookie receiver Isaiah Williams followed Raymond's every move this summer and forced his way onto the Lions' roster. Knowing his own struggle to stick in the NFL, "anything I can do to help my brothers who are out here grinding, I like to give to them," Raymond said.
"So they don’t have to learn the lessons that I had to learn," he said. "They're already a step ahead."
Raymond's daily goal is to "make sure you’re not the same player that you were before." He's ever the same person, happy and hopeful, even when the Lions won three games in that first season. Asked this summer if he'd rather score a touchdown by housing a punt or catching a pass, Raymond said in all sincerity that neither tops the satisfaction of "just going out there and playing ball." He took the trouble out of it Sunday by doing both.
"And the reason I can say that, non-cliche, is because I’ve had a lot of time to not be playing football, I’ve had a lot of times to be cut," he said. "If you see, there’s a blue fence right there."
Raymond is on the right side of it, on the right team.