Lions give up on CB Jeff Okudah, 3rd pick of 2020 draft, trade him to Falcons
The old Detroit Lions regime made a lot of mistakes.
The most prominent probably happened in the 2020 NFL Draft. Coach Matt Patricia and GM Bob Quinn were hesitant on Matthew Stafford's future so they passed on quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert to draft cornerback Jeff Okudah. The good part of that was Okudah seemed like a can't-miss prospect.
Okudah missed. After some up-and-down seasons, he was traded to the Atlanta Falcons on Tuesday. The return was a fifth-round pick according to multiple reports, which isn't much for a cornerback who was a big-time prospect out of Ohio State.
The Lions are still rebounding from the horrendous Patricia era, and part of it is moving on from mistakes like Okudah.
Okudah himself tweeted in apparent reaction to the news Tuesday:
😏
— Jeff Okudah (@jeffokudah) April 11, 2023
Jeff Okudah gets a fresh start
Okudah was a clean prospect coming out of college. He had good size and was a fantastic player at Ohio State.
It didn't work out in Detroit.
When the Lions traded star corner Darius Slay — another one of many bad moves by the Patricia regime — they tried to replace him with Okudah. He suffered a hamstring injury in training camp, causing him to miss the season opener, and a groin injury ended his season in November. In between, he struggled in coverage.
All the while, Tagovailoa and Herbert were making impacts for their new teams. Stafford was traded to the Los Angeles Rams the offseason after the Lions passed on those QBs to draft Okudah.
Okudah tore his Achilles tendon in the season opener of his second season. He had a nice comeback in 2022, starting 15 games, but the Lions were clearly ready to move on considering they took just a fifth-round pick from the Falcons to get him.
Falcons take a chance
The Falcons can afford to take on young players who washed out elsewhere. They're looking for building blocks.
The Lions want to compete now. They needed to upgrade the pass defense and signed cornerbacks Cameron Sutton and Emmanuel Moseley and safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson. The additions made Okudah expendable.
New Lions general manager Brad Holmes and coach Dan Campbell have done a good job leading a rebound from a horrible era under Patricia and Quinn. They're still cleaning house a bit, and on Tuesday that meant Okudah was moving on.
