Changes were needed, and changes were made. The Lions couldn't in good conscience trot out the same group of defensive backs that had been torched the first two weeks. So, Rock Ya-Sin was down. Roger McCreary and Ennis Rakestraw were up.
"We wanted to get all of our guys to the game and give them a chance," said Dan Campbell.
Rakestraw was told Monday that he'd be active for the first time this season. He had seen the slander around his name, he said, all the frustration about his status as a healthy scratch. The criticism wasn't entirely unfair. How could a former second-round pick, who was healthy for most of camp, not be good enough to crack a clearly compromised secondary?
"Man, I don’t really care what the media or anybody says," Rakestraw said.
But Rakestraw is human. Everyone wants to prove their doubters wrong. Everyone wants to prove their believers right. When Rakestraw had to sit for the first two games, "It just motivated me a lot," he said. "I wanted to play in the games, but they felt something else. I trust in whatever they wanted to do. They called my number up this week, so had to show up. I think I showed up. Gave up, like, one catch for five yards on the out route."
The veteran McCreary got most of the snaps in place of Ya-Sin, typically playing opposite D.J. Reed when the Lions were in their base defense. But when they played nickel, the Lions bumped McCreary inside and turned to Rakestraw on the perimeter. In his first regular season game since November of 2024, Rakestraw rose to the challenge. Most of his 22 coverage reps were one-on-one matchups with Jets star receiver Garrett Wilson.
Wilson finished with 10 catches for 107 yards and a touchdown -- almost all of that damage came against Reed and to a lesser extent McCreary. The Lions clearly lack a lockdown No. 1 corner. We can say that three games into the season after watching Reed get worked over by the likes of Chris Olave and Wilson.
But they might have discovered a solid No. 2 in the man who wears No. 2.
One of Rakestraw's first snaps came against Wilson late in the first quarter. He closed fast on a comeback route and punched the ball out of Wilson's clutches just as the receiver was bringing it in: "Trusted my coaching and trusted what I saw on film all week," said Rakestraw.
Wilson won a similar route against Rakestraw on 3rd and 4 in the fourth quarter, but Rakestraw was on it. Later, on the decisive drive of the game, the Jets trailing by seven with under a minute to go, Rakestraw denied a deep curl to Wilson, mirroring the receiver the whole way. Chuck Clark got home for the game-ending strip sack on the ensuing snap.
Rakestraw entered year three in Detroit with 46 defensive snaps to his name in the NFL. He played half that many on Sunday, and more than held his own. In his first regular season game in 679 days after missing the end of 2024 due to core and hamstring injuries and all of last year due to shoulder surgery, "I learned that I can play in this league," Rakestraw said.
"I finally got to play in a game, and I knew what kind of challenge it was going to be backside with No. 5, he’s paid a lot of money. Just had to step up to it."
It wasn't so much a realization for Rakestraw, "just confirmation for me" that he belongs, that he can hang, that he can make a difference. "That’s all I really needed, and then go produce out there," he said.
Rakestraw knows he has to emerge this year, with the Lions decimated by injuries and attrition in the secondary. He didn't hide from that fact in training camp. But he didn't play well enough to win a starting job, beaten out by Ya-Sin for the CB2 spot. And while he still has a ways to go to significantly lift this defense, Sunday was a start.
On the whole, Rakestraw was "pretty happy" with his performance. But "I’m still mad I gave up a 3rd and 3 five-yard catch," he said. "I don’t like that, so I’m still evaluating myself. That was iffy."
The quarterback that Campbell called "the death of us" nearly killed the Lions again. Smith rallied the Jets from a 24-10 fourth quarter deficit, ultimately completing 31 of 37 passes for 321 yards and three touchdowns. He's now thrown for 1,364 yards, eight touchdowns and one pick in his last four games at Ford Field.
Detroit's secondary is short on talent, but it was at least slightly more connected Sunday. The communication issues that cost the defense in the first two game were mostly ironed out. The blown coverages weren't so glaring. And ultimately, it was Clark who sealed the game with a well-executed blitz. Smith and the Jets knew it was coming. Clark just got there before they could do anything about it.
Rakestraw was so confident in the way he was playing that when the call came into the huddle, he tried to call his own name on the blitz. He did show his pass-rushing abilities throughout camp. He looked at Clark and "told him, 'Me.' He told me, 'Nah.' I was like, 'Ahhh,' Rakestraw said with a laugh. "He got it done."
And Rakestraw got it done in his season debut. He's three years but just nine games into his career. The Lions are desperate for more playmakers in the secondary. Maybe they found one Sunday, where they've been looking all along.
"We gotta get a little bit better on the backend," Rakestraw said. "We’re going to fix it. But being backside versus their star receiver is a challenge, a challenge I gotta accept. That’s what I was drafted for."
