I really believe this guy is one of the future OL stalwarts, possibly next year.
# After fighting through an illness, Lions rookie thankful for this ‘surreal’ opportunity
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“I’m thankful for my family, my girlfriend, for everyone around me,” Christian Mahogany was saying. “I’m thankful for my teammates, of course, the coaches, the staff here.”
He was standing in front of his locker in the Lions locker room. “You never can say enough thanks, right?” he said, sincerely. “I’m just thankful to be here in general.”
Just being here is a complicated story. The Lions picked Mahogany, a guard from Boston College, in the sixth round of the 2024 Draft. He went through rookie minicamp and OTAs, and everything was going great, as he prepared for his first training camp.
Then it all fell apart when he got sick in mid-July.
At the worst possible time.
“I went to multiple doctors,” Mahogany said. “One doctor thought it was strep.”
He had lost a bunch of weight – around 30 pounds – and was down to 300.
“I just felt sick,” he said.
By November, it was clear the Lions were impressed with his improvement.
“Since he’s come off of IR, you’ve seen Christian grow immensely,” Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson said on Nov. 21. “I wish – I really wish we, as a staff really wish, he would have been available there in the preseason because those would’ve been huge games to really get a gauge for where he’s at right now, and it’s a little bit harder in practice.
"Sometimes we have pads on, sometimes we don’t. But, from the one-on-one aspect, the pass-pro and run blocking, you see flashes of immense potential right there. So, we’ll continue to try to find where we can slip him in to get him more experience, but he’s a guy that we have high hopes for.”
Flashes of immense potential?
Did you catch that? Johnson doesn’t throw around a phrase like that casually.
And it’s why this is more than a cute comeback story.
