Lions' Dan Campbell announces brutal injury on new $25M starting center

Lions' Dan Campbell announces brutal injury on new $25M starting center originally appeared on The Sporting News .

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The Detroit Lions are heading into the 2026 NFL season with a bit of a new-look offensive line. After retirements, injuries, and positional changes, the projected line looks a bit different.

Penei Sewell is at left tackle now, with Christian Mahogany at left guard, Cade Mays at center, Tate Ratledge at right guard, and Blake Miller at right tackle. Unfortunately, that projected starting line is not going to get a chance to play together.

According to ESPN's Adam Schefter , Dan Campbell announced that Mays, their $25 million new center, is going to miss a lot of time due to a wrist injury that makes their center position, for the second straight year, a major problem.

Lions get awful news on Cade Mays amid significant injury

"Lions center Cade Mays suffered a wrist injury that will now result in him missing what HC Dan Campbell called 'a significant' amount of time," Schefter reports.

This is a massive blow for the Lions' offensive line, as Mays was meant to resolve the center issues the team dealt with last season.

But now, Mays is going to miss a lot of time, and likely well into the regular season. There's no specific timeline for Mays' recovery, but this update from Campbell doesn't exactly instill any confidence that he'll be back soon.

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It's another brutal injury for the center position, as last year, things got so bad that the Lions tried bringing Frank Ragnow out of retirement. That didn't work, and now, due to some bad luck, Mays is also not fixing this center problem.

Now, Juice Scruggs is projected to be the Lions' starting center, with Michael Niese and Seth McLaughlin as potential options as well.

During the upcoming preseason games, it's going to be imperative that the Lions figure out who can be their starting center with Mays likely sidelined for a while.

They could also look to free agency or a trade to improve the center position, but regardless, being in this spot after spending $25M on Mays to try to resolve this problem is a brutal situation for the Lions to find themselves in ahead of the regular season.

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