Detroit Lions OL Halapoulivaati Vaitai has back surgery, status unknown for season

The Detroit Lions have their first long-term injury loss of the 2022 season.

Halapoulivaati Vaitai had back surgery in Dallas on Tuesday, Lions coach Dan Campbell said, and his status for the rest of the year is now up in the air.

"That's (something) to monitor," Campbell said Wednesday. "He certainly will be out for a little while here, but we're not ruling out that he's done for the season."

Vaitai, the Lions' starting right guard, was placed on injured reserve Sept. 5, ruling him out for at least the first four games. He has had multiple ailments in his tenure with Detroit, missing six games with a foot injury in 2020 and two games in 2021 — one with COVID-19, the other due to a brain injury.

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This could be the second consecutive season where the Lions don't play a game with all five projected starting offensive linemen healthy. In 2021, left tackle Taylor Decker started the year hurt, and by the time he returned, center Frank Ragnow was lost for the season.

"You're definitely going to miss Big V, it's always hard to replace," Lions OL coach Hank Farley said. "He's in great spirits, I've been texting with him, he's just saying, 'I'll be ready to go, coach' so I can't wait for him. He's great for the room, too. He's the big teddy bear in the room, honestly. Big V is the loose, childish kind of guy that we love in our room, every O-line room needs one and that's him, but when he gets on the field, it's a different story, he's moving people.

"But I always look at it for the next guy in. ... That's the mentality of the O-line room."

That "next guy" is Logan Stenberg, a 2020 fourth-round pick from Kentucky who made his first career start in place of Vaitai in Week 1 vs. Philadelphia. The advanced numbers showed he didn't fare well: He ceded four of the Lions' 11 quarterback pressures, and his 0.0 pass blocking grade per Pro Football Focus was the lowest of any offensive lineman.

But Campbell said the game featured ups and downs, and overall, "it was a positive."

The poor rating largely had to do with three bad snaps — two on the first drive in which he had consecutive false starts inside the red zone (though the Lions still got a touchdown on the drive) — and another four possessions later when he was beat on a defensive line stunt, which forced a quick throw from quarterback Jared Goff that resulted in a pick-six.

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"There's always going to be things to clean up," Fraley said. "He had some really good plays that he had in there that you love, and some things that he can work on. More technique issues that critics, writers whatever, reporters, might say, 'Oh he got crushed,' but normally a lot of times O-line play is more about, 'What did you do wrong?' "

Fraley, a former longtime NFL center, shared the story of his first career start with the Eagles; he left a snap short for quarterback Donovan McNabb on the first play. It was recovered by the defense and the opponent scored two plays later.

It's why he loved what he saw following Stenberg's first series. Fraley said he was ready to tear into the youngster about how his two false starts nearly cost the team a touchdown, but the leaders of the line wouldn't let him get that far.

"You can't imagine how pissed off I was," Fraley said. "The O-line when they're coming off, I'm eyeing Logan, I'm just eyeing him, and we scored, so it made it feel a little different, but the vets running by me were just like, 'Let him go.'

"That's what you've got to love about the group because they were just like, ':et him go,' so I was like, 'OK,' and I just told him, 'Don't let it happen again.' "

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Halapoulivaati Vaitai, Detroit Lions guard, has back surgery