Dan Campbell Training Camp Opening Press Conference 2026

Major injury updates on Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph

After much injury speculation over the past few days with the release of the PUP and NFI lists, Dan Campbell’s opening training camp press conference was of major interest. He provided key injury updates on multiple players. (Here is the link to the full presser video.)

Here’s the analysis of what he said on each player along with my impression of if his words were..

• 🟢Good news

• 🟡Neutral news

• 🔴Bad news

Campbell also addressed the important question of whether starters would play in preseason, which I will get to at the end.

🟢Brian Branch (PUP)

December 4, 2025: Achilles rupture

There’s no setbacks. Late training camp, maybe early September, he can start practicing.

Let’s start with the best news of the day, which was better than expected. Dan Campbell said there is a chance that Branch could return to practice in late August or early September. That’s a big deal because the NFL cutdown-to-53 day is August 30. In order to practice, he needs to come off the PUP list.

• If Branch comes off PUP before August 30, he would be eligible to play as soon as Week 1 vs the Saints.

• If Branch moves to reserve/PUP on August 30, he must miss the first 4 games of the season. Earliest return to play would be Week 5, October 11 vs the Cardinals.

My previous expectation was he would move to reserve/PUP. But now, it looks like there is a realistic chance that he beats those expectations.

🟢Christian Mahogany (Non-Football Injury)

He just needs a couple days and he’ll be ready.

An NFI designation can be anything from very minor to very severe - see Josh Paschal’s NFI back issue from last year that cost him the entire season. Mahogany has landed on the very minor side of the spectrum which is excellent news.

There were no details on the actual injury yet.

🟡Kerby Joseph (PUP)

~July 2025: Left knee

He’s running on ground, he’s starting to do change-of-direction. We’re not going to grind this for another 2-3 weeks. We got a long way to go. There is still an unknown.

If we got him back for the first game, that would be a bonus. I don’t expect that.

I feel like he’s more on the Branch plan and that’s if everything goes well and everything goes according to plan with him and we got everything on our side.

Dan Campbell was visibly crossing his fingers during the last part of the quote. This was not an encouraging update from Dan Campbell, but also is in-line with what we’ve seen over the past year.

It’s not a favorable sign that Kerby is just starting to do change-of-direction drills 8 months after his last practice in December. Delaying the full stress testing of the knee until the last possible moment seems to be the plan here.

The big revelation was that Kerby is not expected back for Week 1. The plan may be for him to return mid-late season and have his knee mileage available for the playoffs… if the Lions get there.

🟡Tyler Conklin (PUP)

Probably 2 weeks. He’s running. He got a little calf back in the spring.

Conklin missed the final days of OTA and all of the 2-day minicamp in early-mid June. Not sure if June counts as “spring” or not to Dan Campbell.

A spring onset (April?) would imply that this calf has been lingering for many months. (The Lions signed Conklin as a free agent in mid-March.) It’s possible he aggravated a pre-existing calf issue during OTA.

Calf muscle strains can get aggravated easily, but will heal up just fine eventually. The bigger concern is the small risk of a calf strain escalating into an Achilles rupture. Thus, precaution is wise, and I expect the Lions to take things very slow and gradual throughout camp.

Recall Ifeatu Melifonwu who had a suspected Achilles strain in the 2024 preseason that lingered all the way into November.

🟢Christian Izien (Non-Football Illness)

Izzy just had a little flu bug. Hopefully by Friday we get him in practice.

Just a “flu bug” for Izien. This was expected, but still good to hear that it wasn’t an unusual long-term issue like Christian Mahogany’s mono from 2024.

Could the starters play in preseason?

Right now I would like to, but we’ll see how it goes.

The decision whether to play the starters in preseason may come down to how many injuries the Lions sustain throughout camp. If the Lions are losing players in camp, then Campbell may not want to risk any further injuries in a preseason game.

If the Lions stay very healthy, then Campbell may have chips on the table that he is willing to gamble on during preseason.

To help the team stay healthy through camp, Campbell could consider cutting back on the live tackling…