[spartangreen]

changes the Lions plans, sounded like he was doing great in camp.



Rookie running back Mikel Leshoure tore his left Achilles tendon in practice today and will miss the rest of the season, Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz said.

Leshoure, the Lions’ second-round pick out of Illinois, was injured while carrying the ball during an 11-on-11 drill. He immediately started hopping up and down on one leg and had to be carted off the field.

“You could tell ... just, No. 1, from the way he went down,” Schwartz said. “He’ll have surgery very soon, probably tomorrow, and he’ll be back. He won’t be back this year, but he’ll be back. And he was doing very well.”

The Lions were counting on the 229-pound Leshoure to be an important part of their running game this year, a between-the-tackles and short-yardage complement to Jahvid Best.

Best was stunned when he learned the extent of Leshoure’s injury from reporters after practice. He and Leshoure are training-camp roommates.

“He’s got tremendous talent, so it’s going to be a little shot to us,” Best said. “But we do have depth, so guys just got to pick up the slack, because he was going to be a good player for us.”

No. 3 running back Maurice Morris is out with a broken right hand, and with no other dependable short-yardage back in camp, the Lions could look elsewhere for help.

“We have, obviously, some work to do there and have to change plans a little bit,” Schwartz said. “But there’s a lot of ground to cover between now and the beginning of the regular season, and we’ll work through it the best we can.”

Along with Leshoure, the Lions have spent most of training camp without their other two top picks. Defensive tackle Nick Fairley fractured his foot and is expected to miss at least a month, and receiver Titus Young practiced today for the first time since the opening of camp, because of a hamstring injury. Young only took part in individual drills.

Right tackle Gosder Cherilus also returned to practice, on a limited basis, after missing a week with soreness in his surgically repaired right knee, and linebacker Bobby Carpenter was out today because of illness.

Contact Dave Birkett: 313-222-8831 or dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @freeplions.

[survive]

ffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[Stevedore]

Big loss for the Lions, team seems to be jinxed at times.