The Detroit Lions are unquestionably one of the best teams in the NFL heading into the 2025 season, but they are not without major concerns.
Specifically, the Lions have major injury concerns defensively, and especially after what we saw transpire last season, it's hard to believe that general manager Brad Holmes didn't do more to upgrade that side of the ball this offseason.
Luckily for the Lions, there are still some extremely notable veteran free agents available. While the idea of adding free agents this time of year being the difference between being a contender or not is unrealistic, you have to do whatever you can to raise the floor of your roster. And for the Lions, there's a chance to do that with one specific player.
That player is former #1 overall pick Jadeveon Clowney.
Jadeveon Clowney could be ideal free agent pickup for Lions
As Clowney's professional career has gone along, he's actually maintained a really strong level of consistency as a pass rusher. Although he's never quite lived up to his billing as a former #1 overall pick, Clowney had 9.5 sacks in 2023 and followed it up with 5.5 sacks in 2024.
He actually had more pressures per game in 2024 than he did in 2023, and has a total of 18 tackles for loss and 30 QB hits over the last two seasons combined.
For the Detroit Lions, we're at the point where beggars cannot be choosers. They've been lying in the bed they made up to this point, but it really doesn't make much sense why they have gone relatively status quo off the edge, especially given the injury last season to Aidan Hutchinson.
The Lions are banking on another former first-round pick -- Marcus Davenport -- being back to form this year, but he's also a major injury risk.
Clowney has played at least 14 games in three of the last four seasons. He's got a pretty high floor as a pass rusher. He provides necessary depth, and if the Lions are right about Aidan Hutchinson being back to form, then a player like Clowney only stands to benefit from that with favorable matchups off the edge.
With the way things went last year -- and are already going this year -- injury-wise for the Lions, being able to add a player like Clowney this late in the offseason is bordering on unheard of. They shouldn't wait much longer to bring him in.