Because of the sheer amount of draft selections in the seventh round, The Roar is going to show off the remaining draft picks, and wish the whole team the best for the upcoming season.

PENRITH, NSW - The Lions have made another trade following the draft, bringing in an additional rushing target for Joe Chacon.

The Lions have traded a sixth-round selection to Nice in exchange, Penrith has received fullback Vernon Davis. Davis, who has had two low rushing seasons, with both the RailRiders and Baguettes, will hope to make a third team his home having only played 17 games across the last two seasons. His most productive game was a 22-yard rushing game for the RailRiders in 2022 against Catacol. He has also played as a receiver, with 160 yards across the past two seasons. The Lions will likely use Davis in a three-back rushing team alongside Alvarado and Bell.

Speaking after the trade was finalized with the league office, Head Coach James Jennings talked about how they came around to be trading for Davis and what the sixth-round selection means for him and the team:

"We identified that Vernon was a player we felt was a good fit for our offense and for our rushing group and it will be a positive addition. We aren't really fussed about having to give up a draft pick, they are trade capital for many trades, not a lot of businesses at this time are going to be player for player, with teams wanting to wait until after training camp, but we wanted to bring Davis in, get him as involved in our gameplan, the philosophy we are building here and see how he adapts to our playbook and plays. I know he will be itching to get onto the field and prove himself, he deserves that.

PENRITH, NSW - The Lions have made an additional trade with the defending champions, trading away a defensive playmaker to bolster the offence for the upcoming season.

The Lions have traded away two picks, being a fourth-round (tied to Nottingham) and fifth-round selection along with linebacker William Schofield to Stockholm, with tight end Antonio Jarvis heading to The Lions Den.

Schofield, who was earlier in the offseason potentially traded to Stockholm, now gets to the North Stars, however, sources have indicated to us that while this trade was the two above picks, the Lions may have gotten away with it, with earlier reports suggesting to us that the North Stars wanted Schofield along with future picks in the second and third rounds. Getting away with a fourth-round and fifth-round pick, while also boosting the tight end room and offensive weapons, would have to be a steal for the Lions. Jarvis, who played in last season's championship game, played both seasons with the North Stars and has amassed 254 yards with a touchdown in his career so far, and will look to play backup to Wayne Snyder who seems to have a lock on the starting job at tight end.

Speaking after the trade, General Manager Todd Carlton talked about how this trade will look for the team heading into the preseason and the regular season:

"We wanted to bring in someone who we knew could be there for the team, work into the philosophy and attitudes that Coach Jennings and the team want there to be this season, and we are serious about not playing like we did last season, that this is a whole new ball game for us and we feel that Antonio has that attitude and drive to succeed, he has seen and been part of if for the last two seasons, and we feel he can bring that positive and winning mentality to the offense and the whole team".

PENRITH, NSW - The Lions have traded away a start running back to Derry in exchange for another.

The Penrith Lions today finalized a trade with the Derry Mean Machine where both teams exchanged a number of draft selections along with both Fred Pickney and Frank Bell, with Bell heading off to Derry and Pickney heading to Penrith. The Lions received a fifth-round and sixth-round selection in the 2025 draft, whilst giving up a second-round selection in the same draft class.

In making the move, the Lions bring in a younger running back, who they can build the run game around, and alongside rookie Steven Alvarado, a running back duo that can be a stable fit for the roster for many years to come, while giving up a star running back who achieved 1,115 rushing yards and three touchdowns for the Lions across two seasons, to go along with his nearly 700 receiving yards and two touchdowns.

The Lions pick up Pickney, who was drafted by the Wildcats, but traded to Derry last offseason and produced a solid season for the Mean Machine, garnering 671 rushing yards and two touchdowns. He will team up with Steven Alvarado who so far has had a very impressive start to his professional career and will look to continue that form alongside Pickney in the coming years.

Talking to the media, General Manager Todd Carlton spoke about what this trade means for the Lions and whether or not they gave up too much for Pickney:

"To be honest, we felt it was the right deal. We appreciate everything that Frank has done for us over the last two seasons and we wish him the best moving forward in his career and we feel that having the experience of Fred coming in, alongside Steven [Alvarado], we can develop these two young players into superstars who can be in our backfield for many years to come and they can complement each other in pushing our run game further than we did last season. We felt that the offer on the table was fair, that's all it is. It was fair and reasonable and it was what we were after".

PENRITH, NSW - The Lions have made a trade heading into the regular season with the defending league champions

The Penrith Lions today finalized a trade with Stockholm, with the Lions sending across a fifth-round selection in the next draft in exchange for linebacker Michael McDonald. The Lions were looking for additional linebacker support with the injury to Michael Egan that he suffered in the final preseason game, and will provide that support to Paul Quick in the linebacker corps for the opening of the new season, with the Lions getting ready to host the Florence Fools.

After the trade was finalized, General Manager Todd Carlton talked about what the trade means for the team moving forward and heading into the regular season:

"We felt that we wanted to boost the support that our linebackers had, and while we felt that we could easily handle the injury to Michael, we also felt that it was important to ensure that we had solid defence and support, and McDonald gives that to us and we are only having to give up a fifth-rounder, we feel that the trade offer is good enough and that Michael [McDonald] can come in and provide solid support and commitment to our defence over the coming season".

PENRITH, NSW - The Penrith Lions have, following the end of the preseason and the league requirement to reduce the roster size to 53 players, the team have released the following players from their contracts.

RDE Paul Buckley, CB Robert Holder, WR Kurt Hutchins, RG Harvey Johnson, RG David Ramsey and WLB Robert Reyes

The Lions do need to make one additional cut to the roster, with the roster currently standing at 54 players, this cut will be made prior to the opening regular season game against Florence.

The Lions also have made representations to guard Harvey Johnson and his team and have agreed on an injury settlement with the player, where the team will continue to fund outside rehabilitation and recovery costs for the player during his current injury, along with any medical costs associated with this injury. Should the player sign with another team in the league, the Lions will continue to pay medical costs to the player, as to avoid any additional costs incurred by the player's new team.

The Lions head into the new season off the back of a very busy offseason, with boosted improvements across all areas of the roster, a renewed outlook and a rebuild that seems to have gotten off to a positive start, with the team heading into Week 1 off the back of a 3-1 preseason along with the start of the third "new" era of quarterbacks for the team, with it likely that transferred quarterback Joe Chacon will be the starter for the team as they get ready to face the Florence Fools in an early divisional matchup that could shape the season from the outset.

While the Lions do head into the game off the back of a solid 3-1 preseason, and a 13-10 victory of the Slamhounds, some may be saying that it could be a false hope as they head into season 3. However, many will say that the Lions used the preseason to bed in the new recruits to the roster, with only a couple of positions not affected by the offseason rebuild of the roster, but with Chacon under center now, and the team looking at the future, this season could be one where the team needs a marked improvement or it's curtains for any hope of the team achieving a title in the near future. The Lions did also return their entire coaching staff, with Head Coach James Jennings returning for a third season, hoping to improve on the disaster that was last season. It was a busy offseason for the coaching staff and administration, with no less than 15 trades being made in the offseason, to go along with the 13 rookies drafted to the roster, and while four have not made the 53-man roster, there is a bright future for the team, with the likes of first-round selection Alan McCoy and even running back Steven Alvarado looking strong candidates to be starters into the future.

The Fools also have made changes throughout the offseason, most notably the firing of Head Coach George Fenn after only one season in the top job, and promoting offensive coordinator Paul Stone to the role. With a young roster in Florence, they have the tools to be competitive and will look to get off to a solid start, and with a divisional game first up, not only will the Fools look to get off to a winning start but get their first divisional victory (currently 0-12 in divisional games), so a strong performance from the likes of Leeroy Jenkins and Hmmm Goodenough will be crucial for Florence if they are to get off the bottom of the division and show their competitive spirit. The only question is whether those tools are actually good enough, as they struggled in the preseason, only managing a tough 6-3 victory over the Rhinos, and giving up on average 21.3 points in the other three games (scoring only 9.3 points in those same three games).

When asked about the matchup, Head Coach James Jennings was quietly confident about their chances and how a Week 1 victory would hopefully shape the mentality of the players and how it will help lead into the season:

"We look at it, the schedule, in blocks of four. We don't look at where we want to be in Week 16, but where we want to be come the end of Week 4, and if we can be at that level, be at that point, or even be ahead of it, then we are on track to achieve our goals, to achieve what we set out to do each season. Four weeks, that's how we look at it and this first game will be a very tough test for us, Florence are not a team that will roll over and just hand a victory over to you, they will make you fight for it. We saw that last year, with the tough wins we got against them, how they pushed us every second of those games and I have no doubt that it will be the same this year. They are a good side and their time will come, but I know a solid victory first up will be a big boost of morale and confidence for the whole roster and team and will give us the understanding that this rebuild we are on, the rebuilding we have done in the offseason is paying off slowly, and that we are on a good path".

Game Prediction: Lions to win this one easy, probably by two scores, so let's say 10 points.

The Lions kept with the program, continuing where they left off last season with a disaster of a game, losing 10-6 to the Florence Fools, allowing the Fools to not only snap a four-game losing streak to the Lions but also gifting them an early Christmas present with their first ever divisional win in three seasons and putting the Lions to the bottom of the division. It just seemed to be the Lions of old and nothing seemed to change, with the offense struggling to get anything going, the defence playing catchup and special teams the only ones with any contributions at all, with Jeffery Paz again providing the only points of the whole game for the Lions.

With so much positive outlook on the season, it was back to reality for the team, with new quarterback Joe Chacon sacked 5 times, a career-high for him and barely managing to get out of first gear, many are already starting to wonder if the Lions made the right call to trade for him and if it really wasn't meant to be the saving grace that they had hoped for. Chacon struggled, going 25-for-37 with only a measly 3.81 yards per attempt, which certainly was not good enough, and with the likes of the receiving corps suffering even more, questions need to be asked whether this rebuild is going to take longer than a season if this is the beginning of the end for Head Coach James Jennings.

The only two bright sparks were running back Fred Pickney (13 rushes, 83 yards) and also linebacker Paul Quick (15 tackles) that seemed to put a small smile on the faces of the players and the fans, but with the tough part of the season about to begin, a four-game road trip, it may be a while before we see more smiles on the fans' faces again. The road trip starts with a tough assignment, heading back to face the Forbidden City Dragons, who come into the game off the back of a solid and impressive 33-7 victory last week and look to finally have the pieces together to be in serious contention this season. Compared to the Lions, the Dragons whole roster never got out of second gear, racking up the points early, four touchdowns before the Raptors even got close but when they eventually did get into the endzone, the game was all but over.

Speaking after the game, Head Coach James Jennings was not impressed with the performance of the team and said that even after one game, some tough choices are going to have to be made if this season is to be anything better than it was last year:

"We can't play like that week in and week out, it just won't cut it. The guys are deflated, I'm deflated after that one, and I'm sure ownership is deflated. That is not how we play football, that is not the philosophy, the mantra, or the desire to play football that we all worked so hard for. That game is not what this rebuild is for, it is not what we spent months working on, developing and implementing, it just isn't. We made it clear that we can't have a season like we did last year again, we just can't, but if we can't do better across all aspects of the football, across all areas on the field, then why do we sit there in the meetings and plan the game out. We have to be better than that, we have to be better than we are now and we just can't sit here and pick out the so-called "easy" win, we need to take it to the whole league and it starts by playing a whole lot better than we did together. To be honest, that performance by us was disgusting.

Dragons' quarterback Yuan Shao impressed with 325 yards in the air, the second most in the league last week, and looks to be the franchise quarterback that the Lions so desperately need at some point, the Dragons have kicked it up a notch this year, as they effectively blanketed the Raptors across the whole field. The Lions are going to struggle again and a loss this weekend will consign the Lions to their worst start in team history and could put the Lions two games back early on, and it may be another season of clawing their way back to nothing if things don't change. The Dragons are going to put on a show for their home fans after coming so close last season to making the postseason, many are wondering if this is their year finally.

If the Lions are to make anything of this game and avoid not only an 0-2 start but another shutout like what happened last season against the Dragons, they need to lift their game right across the board. The offense needs to come out swinging as it did in the preseason, Joe Chacon needs to play more like the quarterback he is meant to be and not a quarterback that spends more time on the ground than with the ball in his hand, the run game needs to kick it up a notch, the receivers need to catch the ball and get into the endzone and the defense needs to actually stop the ball and not just rely on one person to do all the heavy lifting.

Game Prediction: Sorry Lions fans, but it's going to be a tough season. Can see the Dragons winning this one by a solid margin