For 10 or so minutes after practice Sunday, Aug. 9, Luke Altmyer stayed on a back field with most of the Detroit Lions’ offensive line barking out cadences.
Lions offensive line coach Hank Fraley wanted his linemen to get used to the tone and delivery Altmyer uses at the line of scrimmage, and Altmyer needed the work, too, after the undrafted rookie had multiple slip-ups in game management in Sunday’s practice and the team’s intrasquad scrimmage two days earlier.
There was a delay of game with the offense backed up near its own goal line and several false start and procedure flags, and while Altmyer wasn’t responsible for every penalty, the quarterback who will take the majority of snaps in the Lions’ preseason opener Thursday, Aug. 13., against the Cincinnati Bengals knew he had some cleaning up to do.
“You can’t run plays if the play clock’s running out so, yeah, that’s another hurdle that I’ve had to climb over,” Altmyer told the Free Press. “Not that I’ve never experienced a play clock. Obviously, I have. But there’s more things that I’m responsible for at this level and this offense that’s new, so sometimes I’m thinking more than I have in the past and lose sight of the play clock. So yeah, it comes with reps in practice and those moments help me learn.”
Altmyer signed with the Lions after the draft for a $10,000 bonus and base salary guarantee of $257,500 – the practice squad rate for 2026 – and has largely been the quarterback the Lions saw spin the ball for three seasons and 35 starts at Illinois.
He’s poised in the pocket, confident in his abilities and at the beginning of a long learning curve that comes with playing the most important position in the NFL.
Lions coach Dan Campbell said Altmyer “did some really good things” while taking all the backup reps for two practices after Teddy Bridgewater left the team to contemplate retirement.
The Lions placed Bridgewater on the reserve/retired list Sunday, and while they signed Josh Dobbs as his replacement to be their veteran backup to Jared Goff, that hasn’t changed the outlook for Altmyer.
“He was put in some really tough positions for a young player that you absolutely have to be put in,” Campbell said. “You just do. You’ve got to be thrust in it and, really, you need to fail, you need to make mistakes so that you can grow. And we thought he handled it really well.
“And there were some things. He had a delay of game, there were a couple of misreads. But, man, that’s part of growth. But what you feel like right now − we’ll know a lot more when we get into games − is it doesn’t feel too big to him right now. And that’s a great sign at that position. So, we’ll see. He’s got a long way to go, and he just needs a million reps.”
Altmyer should get the majority of the work against the Bengals this week and perhaps the rest of the preseason as the Lions weigh whether to give Goff any live action in their second exhibition game next week against the Washington Commanders; phase Dobbs into an offense he’s already familiar with thanks to two stints playing under first-year Lions offensive coordinator Drew Petzing; and decide whether to keep Altmyer on their 53-man roster or practice squad.
Altmyer said that decision is out of his hands, and he wasn’t surprised by the decision to bring another veteran quarterback into camp.
“I didn’t expect for me and Jared to rock out the whole year, so I mean, it’s a business, for sure, and whoever they bring in great,” he said before the Dobbs signing was official. “We’ll compete and we’ll just keep getting better. That’s the job, to keep getting better and make the Lions better. So I’m excited. Excited just to keep on stacking days.”
Altmyer said his parents, grandparents and two brothers plan on traveling to Cincinnati for his NFL preseason debut this week.
He said the game is something of a dream come true for a kid who grew up in Mississippi longing to play football for a living.
And he welcomes whatever failures he’ll have in it and the rest of training camp as a way to get better.
“What an awesome opportunity,” he said. “It’s exactly what I could ever dream of, so to be able to play NFL football, to get a lot of opportunities out there on that field, to lead my guys, what a cool deal that is. You grow up wanting this, and so I’m grateful. I’m blessed. I’m not going to let it go by. I’m going to take full advantage of it and going to prepare the right way and go be ready for it. So I’m excited.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lions QB Luke Altmyer is making mistakes. But here’s why that’s good
Reporting by Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
