DETROIT opened the regular season on Sunday by hosting the New Orleans Saints at Ford Field, and for the first time the Lions were doing it against this opponent at home to start a season. Miller was in the middle of that moment from the start, making his first career start at right tackle in a game that immediately asked him to hold up against a pass rush built to test young linemen.
The search around this Lions game is obvious because the opener put several moving parts on the field at once. Detroit expected to lean on Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams and Sam LaPorta on offense, while also measuring a front seven that drew praise through camp for its depth and consistency. On the other side, the Saints arrived with a defense that finished last season top 10 in the NFL with 45 sacks, even though Cameron Jordan was out with a hamstring injury.
Miller came to this assignment with real mileage behind him. He set the Clemson record for career snaps with 3,778 and started 54 games in college, a résumé that gave Detroit reason to trust him on opening day. That trust was not casual. Aidan Hutchinson worked against Miller throughout spring and summer, and the Lions used camp to see whether the right tackle could survive the first wave of pressure that usually comes with a defense like New Orleans.
The Saints still had enough edge to make the matchup matter. Chase Young finished last season with 10.0 sacks and 11.0 tackles for loss, while Carl Granderson added 6.0 sacks and 11.0 tackles for loss. Without Jordan, the Saints lost the player who led them with 10.5 sacks and 15.0 tackles for loss, but their rush remained the clearest test in front of Detroit’s line. That is why Miller’s first start carried more weight than the label suggests. A first-time starter is not judged by polish; he is judged by whether the edge stays quiet long enough for the offense to function.
Detroit also entered the game with more than one area under the microscope. Alim McNeill had a strong camp and looked to have his burst back, DJ Wonnum and Derrick Moore flashed opposite Hutchinson, and the move to nose tackle appeared to fit Tyleik Williams well. Jack Campbell and Devin White worked well together at linebacker alongside Malcolm Rodriguez, and Derrick Barnes was expected to be a key piece in Kelvin Sheppard's multiple schemes. The point was not simply that the Lions had bodies. It was that they believed those bodies could travel from August practice to a game that counted.
There was also the matter of Alvin Kamara, who was limited in practice on Wednesday and Thursday and listed as questionable. That kept one more layer of uncertainty on a game already shaped by the first-home-opener wrinkle and the pressure test on Miller. Dan Campbell had said of the connection between Petzing and Goff, “I feel like they pulled the best out of each other,” and the offense was expected to look physical and downhill again in the run game while still playing through a unit projected to be one of the league’s most productive. Sunday was the first proof point. For Miller, it was the first answer to a question Detroit had been building toward all summer.
