INDIANAPOLIS — Jeff Okudah has had a rough start to his pro career, missing time with a groin injury as a rookie and rupturing his Achilles tendon last year, but the Detroit Lions remain hopeful Okudah will be a top-tier NFL cornerback.
Lions coach Dan Campbell said Tuesday at the NFL combine the team has no plans to switch Okudah to safety when he returns from his injury this summer.
“Right now we see him as corner, but there again, a lot of this will be as we continue to discuss and depending on who we add or how we add, you never know,” Campbell said. “We’re constantly talking about our personnel and what’s best for them moving forward. What’s best for us?
“Should this guy go to safety? Should this guy go to nickel? Should we bump this guy back out to corner? How are our injured guys? What do we add? So we just constantly are going to have dialogue about that, but yeah, we see Jeff out there and what we need to do is just continue to add pieces that can compete.”
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Okudah, the No. 3 pick of the 2020 NFL draft, has played in 10 games in his first two NFL seasons and finished both on injured reserve.
Last year, he tore his Achilles in the second half of a season-opening loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
According to Pro Football Reference, Okudah has allowed completions on 77.2% of the passes thrown his direction the past two years.
Okudah posted an encouraging video Monday on Twitter of him taking part in on-field workouts. The minute-long video — captioned, “169 days. February was special! God is great…” — showed Okudah backpedaling and doing change-of-direction work.
The Lions return top cornerback Amani Oruwariye in 2022, but have questions abound in their secondary.
Starting safeties Tracy Walker and Dean Marlowe will be free agents March 16, starting cornerback Jerry Jacobs is returning from a torn ACL and could miss the start of training camp and young backup cornerback Ifeatu Melifonwu played sparingly as a rookie because of injuries.
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Campbell said both Okudah and defensive end Romeo Okwara, who also is recovering from a ruptured Achilles, should be able to participate in at least some portion of training camp.
“Both of those guys we feel like right now are right where they need to be, is probably the best way to describe that,” Campbell said. “And as long as everything stays the course with their recovery then we should have them hopefully by training camp, at least on a limited basis, which would be good. So we’re hoping for the season on both of those guys if they’re ready.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.