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Kevin Zeitler on his new team, Detroit Lions, and the pass setting video that went viral

dave birkett, detroit free press
·4 min read
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When news broke Monday night that Kevin Zeitler and the Detroit Lions had agreed to terms on a one-year contract, finalizing a courtship a week in the making, ESPN analyst Robert Griffin III hit social media to repost an old video of Zeitler doing pass sets from the hospital room where his wife was in labor with their second daughter.

"So that was two years ago," Zeitler explained Tuesday in a video conference call with Detroit reporters. "It was early in the process. Nothing crazy happened yet, but we’d been sitting around for a while, so anyone who knows me knows I’ll pass set anywhere, anytime, and I started doing it in there and she thought I was funny so she decided to film me. Had no idea. ... Kind of funny bringing it back up again two years later."

Funny, and appropriate given Zeitler's devotion to football — and pass setting — runs so deep he seems like the ideal final piece to round out the Lions' brick wall of an offensive line.

Zeitler officially signed his one-year contract Tuesday, a deal with a base value of $6 million (according to The 33rd Team) to give the Lions perhaps the NFL's best right side of an offense line.

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Zeitler will play between two Pro Bowlers, right tackle Penei Sewell and center Frank Ragnow, and is coming off a Pro Bowl season himself, when he started 15 games and allowed two sacks, according to Pro Football Focus, for the NFL's best rushing offense with the Baltimore Ravens.

"It’s awesome," Zeitler said. "You always want to play with great players and obviously you can’t get much better than those two. So I’m going to insert myself and I’m going to do whatever I can to raise my level and make sure we get our job done on the right side."

Zeitler said the Lions "reached out right away in free agency," though the two sides did not consummate a deal until Monday.

The Lions return four-fifths of last year's starting line —Sewell, Ragnow, right guard Graham Glasgow and left tackle Taylor Decker — but were in the market for a short-term fix at guard after Jonah Jackson signed a three-year deal with the Los Angeles Rams.

Glasgow, who re-signed with the Lions before the start of the 2024 league year, will move to left guard this fall to accommodate Zeitler.

More: Detroit Lions' Graham Glasgow: 'Everything worked out exactly how I liked' in free agency

A 12-year NFL veteran who has played on the right side his entire career, the 34-year-old Zeitler said he saw plenty of crossover tape of the Lions' offensive line while preparing for the Ravens' NFC opponents last season and was impressed with the group's play.

"Being able to see them on film, watch them on TV, it was like, 'OK, they like to run the ball, they are taking over games,' " he said. "It’s all great stuff and I’m honored the team wanted me to be a part of that and my only goal is to make sure I come in, work my butt off to make sure I keep being part of that standard that’s been set here."

And after meeting Lions coach Dan Campbell on Tuesday, Zeitler said he, too, is confident he and the Lions will be a fit.

"His energy, his views on things, I think we’re going to mesh together really well," he said. 'My only goal here, I'm going to do everything I can, like I said, to help live up to the standard that’s been set."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions OG Kevin Zeitler honored to join one of NFL's top lines