And here we go again with this one. On Tuesday ESPN’s Matt Bowen put out his top 50 free agent list and included the best fit for each player. Of the 50 players listed, he only saw one of them being a good fit for the Lions, and that one fit was Chase Young. Here’s his reasoning.
“Here’s a fun one. Detroit coach Dan Campbell could add Young to pair with Aidan Hutchinson off the edge. Young notched 5.5 sacks with the Saints in 2024, and his 46 pressures tied for 11th most in the league. He’d be a low-risk signing with upside.”
Young has been tied to the Lions for more than a minute. Back in 2023, he was someone who made a lot of sense to trade for at the trade deadline. We were definitely writing about how we thought it made sense at the time. But as time went on, it started to make less and less sense.
At one point Young was a Pro Bowler and the NFL Rookie of the Year. Then he tore his ACL in his second season and he’s never quite been able to get back to the player he was expected to be.
The 49ers wound up trading a third-round pick for Young that year and he did not pan out to be the guy that they may have hoped he would be. In fact he kind of disappeared in San Francisco and they chose not to bring him back the next year.
Young played for the Saints in 2024 and he did have an ok season, but he’s shown that his days of being a starter are likely over.
If the plan is to bring in Young as a player who can be a depth guy off the bench, then this makes a lot more sense, but he would need to come on the cheap end of things.
Cap expert Joshua Queipo projects that Young could be up for a three-year deal worth $45 million. That is not a crazy amount, but it’s probably more than he should be getting at this point. If the Lison were able to get him on a one-year prove-it deal worth something like $10 million, that feels like a much more worthwhile move.
Young could be part of the fix, but at this point, he is not the fix.