One Surprise Cut the Detroit Lions Could Still Make This Offseason

With a relatively new head coach in Matt Patricia, the Detroit Lions are stuck in stasis, far from contention, but also never worthy of the very bottom, as long as Matthew Stafford is healthy. They've gotten the ball rolling with a nice draft in April, but if they want to save some room in the cap to continue to add talent and pay the producers they have, they'll need to make some cuts. One of the unlucky few could be shocking, if the Lions decide to part ways with Romeo Okwara.

Okwara joined Detroit's ranks in 2018 after a disappointing two-year stint with the New York Giants. In that first season, he had 39 tackles and a solid 7.5 sacks. In 2019, he only started a single game, and was fairly shaky in the 14 games he appeared in while enduring a season-long bout with an injury. After selecting his brother Julian in the third round of the draft, his time could be up.

Many might be thinking they'll have a rotating situation on the edge between the pair of brothers and Trey Flowers, but it's uncertain whether or not that's worth the trouble. Okwara's down 2019 did little to demonstrate that their two-year extension of the 24-year-old was worth it.

He'll carry a cap hit of $4 million in 2020, but a cut or trade would carry no penalty and result in only $1 million in dead cap. Considering he's banged up and not producing, it's not much of a stretch to imagine they might just go with the younger, more athletic model of Okwara they nabbed in the draft.

The Lions already have a decent defensive front, and keeping an injury-prone guy on the roster hurts the cap if they really want to make it to the next level. They drafted his brother, but they may have also been drafting his replacement.