Detroit Lions Announce Initial 2026 Roster

After a few hours past the 6PM deadline, the Detroit Lions finally released their initial 53-man roster for the 2026 season, and it had several surprises on it in both the cuts and the keeps. Now, before we get too far down the rabbit hole, there is likely some roster management going on with some of the cuts, and it is likely that Holmes is not done, as he may look to pick up some players that were waived or released by other teams.

Brent and Chris did a live reaction show while waiting on the roster to be dropped.

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So on to the initial 53-Man Roster:

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The Detroit Lions Initial 53-Man Roster effective 08/30/26

In order to get to the initial 53, the Lions started the process with several players being moved/waived from Reserve lists, that do not count again the total:

• OC Cade Mays moved to reserve Injured/Designated for Return List

• OL Giovanni Manu moved to the Reserve/Non-Football Injury List

• S Brian Branch moved to the Reserve/Physically Unable to Perform List

• S Kerby Joseph moved to the Reserve/Physically Unable to Perform List

• OL Michael Niese waived from Reserve/Injured with an injury settlement

The following players were released and do not go through waivers

DL Myles Adams	LB Joe Bachie	WR Greg Dortch
DL Ben Stille	LB Amen Ogbongbemiga	WR Tom Kennedy
TE Tyler Conklin	LB Troy Reeder	RB Trayveon Williams

The following players were waived and must clear waivers before being able to be signed to the Practice Squad:

QB Luke Altmyer	OL Devin Cochran	TE Thomas Gordon	CB Ekow Boye-Doe
WR Tarik Black	OL Gus Hartwig	LB Erick Hunter	DB Aamaris Brown
WR Malik Cunningham	G Mason Miller	EDGE Anthony Lucas	CB Bump Cooper Jr.
WR Lucky Jackson	G Melvin Priestly	DL Chris Smith	CB Nick Whiteside
WR Dominic Lovett	OL Colby Sorsdal	DL Tyre West	CB Eric Scott Jr.
RB Roydell Williams	TE Zach Horton	S Jason Taylor II	S Dan Jackson

So, the final tally was four (4) moved to reserve Lists, one (1) waived with injury settlement, nine (9) released, and 24 Waived to get from 91 to 53. Waiver claims will be announced at 1pm EST today (8/31) and teams can begin singing players to their practice squads immediately after.

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