The Detroit Lions lost Aidan Hutchinson to a broken leg back in Week 6 and it became very apparent immediately that they needed someone to replace him for the rest of the season and that someone had to come at the trade deadline.
The Lions made their big move when they traded with the Browns to get Za’Darius Smith. He had a nice debut on Sunday against the Jaguars too. He had three pressures and this sack.
And that’s that then right? It is not. The expectation that everyone had is that the Lions will look to Smith to be a short term replacement for Hutchinson, but per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, that is not the case.
“I expect the Lions will be smart about Smith’s snaps. What was made clear to me is they are not looking for Smith, despite his Pro Bowl pedigree, to replace Aidan Hutchinson. They can’t: Hutchinson was a top-10 pass rusher in the NFL before his leg injury. And Smith is 32 years old. What the Lions do expect is for Smith to be a key complementary player on a defensive line that won’t feature only one player. In fact, the Lions will rely heavily on inside guys Alim McNeill and DJ Reader to generate pass rush, with Smith and Josh Paschal starting on the outside. It’s not that Detroit doesn’t expect production from Smith, but expectations should be tempered based on the player he’s replacing and the draft capital the Lions gave up (fifth- and sixth-round picks). Replacing Hutchinson will be a total team effort.”
A first read of that will no doubt make you say “well duh.” That’s what I did. On second read I started to see what is really being said here. That’s that the Lions don’t see their issues as fixed and that they don’t plan to just throw Hutchinson like snaps Smith’s way. He’s going to be a part of the rotation and not the guy.
Hutchinson was playing up to 70 snaps in games this season. He did that in two games and then played 43 in one and 57 in the other. He was on the field for every single play. Do not expect that from Smith this season. The age is one thing, but the big thing is that the Lions plan to still shuffle things around.
We should get a better idea of what the Lions plans are on Sunday against the Colts, but don’t expect Smith to be playing large quantities of snaps. We’re still going to see a lot of moving parts like we were seeing before the Smith trade.