Lions C Cade Mays to Miss Significant Time With Wrist Injury

Per Tim Twentyman, Lions HC Dan Campbell said C Cade Mays has a wrist injury that will knock him out for a “significant amount of time.”

According to Colton Pouncy, Campbell said he does expect Mays to play at some point this year, but believes it will be down the road.

NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport adds Mays suffered a small bone fracture in his wrist and will miss around eight to 10 weeks.

Mays, 26, was a freshman All-American and All-SEC at Georgia but ended up transferring to Tennessee, where he was second-team All-SEC as a senior in 2021. The Panthers drafted him in the sixth round of the 2022 NFL Draft. 

He was entering the third year of a four-year deal worth $3,833,075 that also included a signing bonus of $173,075 when the Panthers waived him coming out of the preseason. He caught on with the Giants practice squad but was later re-signed to the Panthers’ active roster in 2024. 

Carolina re-signed him as a restricted free agent last offseason, and he signed a three-year, $25 million deal with the Lions this offseason as an unrestricted free agent.

In 2025, Mays appeared in 14 games for the Panthers and started 12 times at center.