Burning Question: Should Detroit Lions Safety Kerby Joseph Retire?

Detroit Lions safety has been working all offseason for the opportunity to return from a knee injury suffered in the 2025 season.

Depending on the severity of his condition, there has been growing speculation his playing career could be in serious jeopardy.

After being placed on the Physically Unable to Perform list to start training camp, the talented safety has been spending a signfificant amount of time on social media.

Dr. Jimmy Liao M.D., who is a Lions fan and provides injury analysis, provided Lions On SI in-depth insight regarding the potential severity of Joseph's knee injury and what are the likely possibilities he can return to action this season.

Swelling

Dan Campbell indicated last year Joseph may need to deal with his knee issue for the remainder of his career.

It appears the team is taking an extremely cautious approach, not wanting to ramp up Joseph's physical activity too soon.

Liao pointed out the potential issues Joseph could face are more than just pain managment.

As Liao explained, "It's not just a pain management issue. Swelling is somewhat something that can happen. He's already acknowledged the swelling was one of his symptoms. We have swelling. You start having decreased mobility in that joint. That joint just can't move freely anymore. Also, if this is an articular cartilage issue, what articular cartilage does is it allows the joint to glide the bones to glide across each other, and that is damage.

"The bones do not glide as well anymore. You get friction, you get heat, you get pain, you get swelling. And you can have these mechanical symptoms of grinding, locking," Liao explained further. "Things like that that affect your athletic ability. Kirby's already said just in a recent interview, just in the last day of camp. He was not able to move this fast. He was not able to be as mobile when he had this issue because there was swelling and there was disability. So it's not just that. Let me tough it out. Let me just shoot myself up with some pain medication and fight through the pain. No, it's not that simple."

Following an entire offseason, Joseph's knee has healed as much as it can, according to Liao. It will be up to the Lions to decide when to ramp up his physical activity.

After eight months of rest, at this point, it's healed as much as it can heal. He's rested as much as he can. He's had all the treatments that are possible at this point, and they will know once he starts ramping up if his knee can handle or not. Now it's up to the Lions. Do I want to know now, or do I want to know later an extra month or two of rest at this point? It is unlikely to make a significant difference, if any difference," said Laio. "Apparently the Lions plan is to wait until a little bit later before ramping up and before figuring it out, and that's totally fine. It really doesn't affect the team. There's nothing they can do at this point. They're not going to trade for a star safety. The draft is over. The salary cap issue is already a sunk cost, so nothing really to do at this point.

"Whether they find out now or later. So, apparently the plan is to wait a little bit. Now you were asking about the worst case scenario. The worst-case scenario, as long as he starts ramping up, pain, swelling, disability one or two days afterwards, just like we saw last December. And strangely, this might actually be the best case scenario for the rest of his life. Meaning the best-case scenario for his life may be to early retire and not continue to put this impact damage on his knee, allowing him for as comfortable of a life for the rest of his life. He is going to have a long, healthy life. He's starting his rap career, so he may want to consider early retirement or decreasing or eliminating this high impact damage done to his knee.

Joseph could have a high quality of life, given he is only 25-years-old. If Liao was consulting Jospeh, he would in fact advise him to maybe hang it up.

"He's still so young. It's unfortunate, but these things come for all of us eventually. This type of cartilage wear and tear, arthritic type issues comes earlier than others. Unfortunately for Kerby, it appears that it might have come for him in his mid-twenties. He's got a long, long life ahead of him. So, if this is my son or if this is myself, maybe I'm advising that maybe you don't want to continue to put damage on your knee, because you don't want to have chronic pain the rest of your life. You don't want disability in your life. You don't want future surgeries in your life."

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