Lions OL Christian Mahogany's Practice Window Opens

Will Mahogany contribute for Lions' offensive line in near future?

Detroit Lions offensive lineman Christian Mahogany (73). / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Detroit Lions returned to the practice field to prepare for a big Week 6 showdown with the Dallas Cowboys.

Dan Campbell's group is coming off a bye week, which allowed players a chance to rest and recover ahead of the grueling stretch of the season coming up. Because the Lions had their bye week in Week 5, they will play the final 13 games with no weeks off.

Detroit has several players dealing with various ailments ahead of the Cowboys matchup. However, Tuesday's open portion of practice had all active players in attendance, including Brian Branch and Frank Ragnow.

The Lions have also started the 21-day return to practice clock for rookie offensive lineman Christian Mahogany. The sixth-round pick missed most of training camp with mono and had been on the Non-Football Illness list.

Defensive lineman Brodric Martin remains on injured reserve but was observed on the side.

Branch is looking to return to action after missing the Week 4 game against Seattle. When healthy, he and Kerby Joseph have proven to be a solid safety tandem for position coach Jim O'Neil.

"It's awesome. I think that it's really good, with Kerby last week, obviously with B.B. not playing, he was able to show his versatility and to go down in the box," O'Neil said. "But if the game's on the line, you want Kerby deep and you want B.B. down in the box. It says a lot about both those two players because Kerby just doesn't just want to be looked at as a deep safety and B.B. doesn't just want to be looked at as a box safety. I think both those guys want to be in that 60/40 role, which would be ideal because that makes it harder on offenses. They can't always look at us and say, 'Okay, that's the safety that's dropping down.'"