Allen Park — One of the sizzling story lines of Detroit Lions training camp has been the vacancy at the team’s third receiver position.
“We’re waiting for somebody to step forward,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell said this week. “We’re dying for somebody to step up and say, ‘Hey man, I’m the guy. I’m the guy you can depend on. I’ll be the same consistent player every day and find a way to make the plays that come my way.’”
In actuality, the Lions do have a reliable third receiver behind Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams — he just doesn’t fill the archetype of what the Lions are looking to replace in Josh Reynolds, who left for the Denver Broncos in free agency.
His name is Kalif Raymond, and last season, he caught a career-high 79.5% of passes thrown his way — which ranked first among Lions with 15 or more targets — for 489 yards and a touchdown. Regardless of whether the Lions do find their ideal No. 3 at the position, Raymond is not going anywhere.
Raymond said Campbell’s call for a wide receiver to step up “motivates everybody.”
“I think there’s an opportunity here for everybody, especially in that room. But at the end of the day, especially in this league, it’s also a lot of self-motivation because everyone is trying to make a name for themselves and stick in this league. So the best thing you can do is give everything you can,” Raymond said.
“There shouldn’t be a stone unturned, between catching JUGS (machine balls) to catching punts, studying — obviously, I gotta study some more, too, because I had all these (mental errors) out here, but just studying, being consistent, because once you stop growing, the league will outgrow you.”
Of all the players in Detroit’s locker room, Raymond’s mindset stacks up against any other player, in terms of being a guy that exemplifies the Lions’ general attitude.
In trying to hold his own spot in the league, he hasn’t forgotten the long road it took him to get here. That’s why many young players have pointed to Raymond as the reason why they’ve come along in this league. Isaiah Williams said after his breakout preseason debut that Raymond sat him down and told him everything that would come his way as an undrafted rookie.
Raymond was once an undrafted rookie himself, coming out of Holy Cross in 2016. He didn’t stick on an active roster for nearly a full season until playing 15 games for the Tennessee Titans in 2020. Over his last three years in Detroit, he’s missed just one game and averaged 560 yards per season in that span.
“I had a long road going into the NFL, a long road sticking in the NFL, and I had to learn a lot of lessons along the way. … Knowing how hard it is to stay in this league, anything I can do to help my brothers who are out here grinding, I like to give to them, so they don’t have to learn the lessons that I had to learn,” Raymond said.
“They’re already a step forward. It’s really, really tough to make it in this league, so it’s good just to have a little bit of advice here and there because there are some things that you don’t know until you know ‘em.”
Raymond relayed two of the hardest lessons he had to learn as a pro, which he said he passed on to Williams.
"Run every route like it's coming to you, especially in that first game ... if you run like you're expecting it, your body is already ready to catch the ball; it's a different level coming out of your break," Raymond said. "And the second one is, prepare like you're about to go play 21 or 17 games. Because when you're coming in undrafted, practice squad, whatever it is, once you get there, it's not just one game where you have to be the starting receiver or backup returner on kickoff.
"You have to do that for 17, possibly 21 games straight. So, you have to rain with that mindset."
Raymond will have even more chances to impact the game in 2024, no matter how many snaps he gets at receiver — and based on the way things are going, that's probably going to be quite a few — because of the opportunity presented by the NFL's new kickoff rule, which he said "changes the game completely." Raymond cut his teeth as a returner and has been Detroit's primary punt returner for the last handful of years.
Now, with the kickoff requiring two returners deep, he might get more of a look there, too.
"I've said this before, but those last 30 seconds, normally, you just kick it out of the back of the end zone and let the offense go back to work. But if you keep that inbounds, it adds a (different) dynamic where, with 30 seconds, you could start on the opposite side of the 40," Raymond said. "... It just adds a new element. Returners are getting the ball in their hands.
"It adds a lot of opportunity out here for a lot of guys."
And we've seen what Raymond can do with an opportunity.
