The Detroit Lions have quite a situation going on with their edge rushers. Everyone is waiting to see if and when the Lions will make a trade for someone to help get over the loss of Aidan Hutchinson. In the meantime, the Lions actually added a guy right before Hutchinson’s injury and he had a sneaky good debut with the Lions on Sunday.
The Lions signed veteran Al-Quadin Muhammad to their practice squad a few weeks ago and since then Lions head coach Dan Campbell has talked about him a lot. Here was his comments on Muhammad last Friday:
“Yeah, you don’t have to worry about a guy playing the game with some nastiness and aggressiveness, strength. He’s going to set an edge, he’s going to play hard, he is competitive, he’s a finisher, and he’s got a little bit of rush ability. He’s more of a kind of push the pocket power, and then plays off of that, but it’s more about him coming in to do some of the dirty work and just bring your hard hat, bring your lunch pail type guy. He’s going to give us a good day’s work is really what we’re anticipating, really all we need out of him.”
Muhammad definitely showed on Sunday that he is not someone the Lions have to worry about on the field. He didn’t really show up on the box score in terms of getting sacks and he didn’t get a tackle either, but what he did do on Sunday was lead the Lions in pressures. He had six pressures and six hurries in this game. That’s a huge deal for a team that needs all the help they can get in this department.
The Lions definitely need find an edge rusher soon because while Muhammad and Levi Onwuzurkie teamed up for 11 pressures, the Lions still need someone that can come closer to taking over a game. But what we learned Sunday is that the Lions might have some pieces to help manufacture the pressures Hutchinson was able to make and Muhammad looks like one of those pieces. Don’t be surprised if we see him a lot more or if he gets added to the 53-man roster.