ALLEN PARK >> Mother’s Day is here, and while new Detroit Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold loves his mom, he would hate to see her on the football field.

That’s because, according to him, he would be left with no choice other than to “jam her into the dirt,” Arnold said.

She raised him that way.

“Even when I was a kid, when I used to beat my mom at racing, I had to continually beat her,” he said. “We used to fight when I was younger, just wrestling and playing around. Like, man, I’ll never forget one time, my mom kicked my tooth out because we were going at it so hard.

“If my mom was out here right now and lined up across from me as a receiver, I would jam her into the dirt. That’s just my mindset — and my mom knows that. Football-wise, that’s just the way I think, and the way that I was brought up.”

And with that, the tone has been set for the Lions’ 2024 rookie class, particularly among the cornerbacks. Detroit drafted Arnold out of Alabama after trading up to the 24th pick and swiped Missouri cornerback Ennis Rakestraw Jr. with their second-round pick in April’s NFL Draft.

With veteran Carlton Davis III presumably locked into the team’s top cornerback spot — and Amik Robertson and Emmanuel Moseley vying for the second — that competition is about to get a little less friendly.

“You want to go to a job where everybody’s competing, because that’s how you know everybody’s trying to strive for the same goal and win the Super Bowl,” Rakestraw said. “Competition is what you want.”

Lions assistant general manager Ray Agnew is excited at the prospect of the two rookies going head-to-head.

“I’m sure Rakestraw thinks he’s better; Terrion thinks he’s better, so they’re gonna compete, which is a great thing for us,” Agnew said. “We want competitiveness. We don’t want guys that bow down to people. We want guys to compete and think they’re gonna win the spot.

“I think both of those guys feel like they’ll start, but they’ve got their work cut out for them.”

On day one, Rakestraw and Arnold showed a lot of love for each other. Arnold crashed Rakestraw’s press conference after practice. Rakestraw said the two arrived in Detroit on Thursday and have been hanging out a majority of the time since.

“I spent the majority of the day with him. He’s a funny guy,” Rakestraw said. “What I’m (gonna) do is ask him a (media) question before everybody gets done.”

With Rakestraw waiting near Arnold’s media scrum to return the favor, Arnold was asked how confident he was about starting.

Arnold pulled Rakestraw into the center of the scrum and said, “Well, first things first, I got to bring my brother in.”

“They drafted both of us, so I would say us just coming in here and being the young guys, and we’re going to be here for a long time. We’re going to grow together, excel together, take our losses together, take ‘em on the chin, and I just thank the organization for drafting both of us. This is my brother.”