While it’s NFL Combine week and the focus has been mostly on draft prospects and who the Lions will wind up with, we are just 11 days away from the free agency tampering period beginning. So naturally there’s some free agent talk happening.
ESPN’s Aaron Schatz put out his best free agency fits for all 32 teams on Friday and he had an interesting proposal for the Lions. The first part is that he’s allowing former second-round pick Levi Onwuzurike to walk and find a new team.
The second part is that he’s replacing him with Cowboys interior defensive lineman Osa Odighizuwa.
From a security standpoint, this deal makes sense. Onwuzurike has only played one full season and had one good season, but it was pretty good. In 2024, he had 47 pressures and three sacks.
Odighizuwa missed one game in his NFL career, which was back in his rookie season in 2021. Since then he’s started every game in the last three seasons. He’s also coming off a season in which he racked up 60 pressures and seven sacks. That’s a good year.
The Lions would just have to make the decision on whether or not they believe that Onwuzurike’s 2024 season wasn’t just a flash in the pan, and then they’d have to think about the cost of everything.
Right now, cap expert Joshua Queipo has Onwuzurike, which is projected to have a two-year deal worth $28 million. As for Odighizuwa, that’s a four-year deal worth $94 million. You’re obviously going to put more money into Odighizuwa because he’s more of a sure thing at this point.
So if we had to make the call at this point, it’s hard to not agree with Schatz on this one. You get a really good player with a better health background. You do have to pay more, but he’s a quality player worth that amount.
Could this deal happen? That’s the big question. As of right now, the Cowboys would like to have him back, but they also have to figure out how to keep DeMarcus Lawrence and then also make Micah Parsons the highest paid edge rusher in the game. If he’s available, it’s worth the Lions shooting their shot over.