The men who drafted Jeff Okudah to the Detroit Lions have long since left town, done in by years of bad football and their inability to build — and manage — an NFL roster.
But Okudah’s trade to the Atlanta Falcons on Tuesday, for the prudent return of a fifth-round pick, is one more reminder of the crapshoot we are approaching in this month’s NFL draft.
The Lions took Okudah with the No. 3 overall pick in 2020, making him the highest-drafted cornerback in more than two decades. Okudah was a unicorn in that regard, a polished cover man out of Ohio State with star-quality physical traits and the work ethic to match. As foolish as it seems now, he was thought by many outside of the Lions to be one of the surest things in that spring’s draft.
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“I know exactly what position he plays,” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said in the weeks leading up to the draft. “I’ve seen him play that position against elite competition and I’ve seen him play at a very high, consistent level. So to me, Okudah would be the safest (of the players the Lions were looking at, at No. 3).”
The Lions had no shot that year at Joe Burrow, who went No. 1 overall to the Cincinnati Bengals and is now one of the three best quarterbacks in the NFL, or Chase Young, who made the Pro Bowl as a rookie but has stumbled upon hard times in the two years since, and they showed little interest in the two other quarterbacks who went in the top 10, Tua Tagovailoa (No. 5 to the Dolphins) and Justin Herbert (No. 6 to the Chargers.
Instead, they picked from the draft’s three best defenders not named Young: Okudah, defensive tackle Derrick Brown and linebacker Isaiah Simmons.
The idea was to land a long-term starter, someone who could anchor their defense for years to come, and Okudah had — has, still — all the tools to fit that bill.
But Okudah struggled as a rookie, as cornerbacks are prone to do, and injuries quickly derailed his career. He elected to undergo sports hernia surgery late in his rookie season, after a disagreement with the team over whether he needed the procedure (one that was resolved after Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn were fired in late November), then returned healthy and happy the next summer, only to tear his Achilles tendon in his first game of the year.
To Okudah’s credit, he busted his butt rehabbing from that injury and made it back — without restrictions — for training camp last summer.
Still raw from a lack of playing time, Okudah won a starting job in a leaky Lions secondary and proceeded to have an up-and-down year. His highs early on — an interception returned for a touchdown against the Chicago Bears and a masterful effort (with plenty of help from his teammates) against Justin Jefferson and the Minnesota Vikings — were offset by lows late, and subpar December performances against the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers cost him his starting job the final two weeks of the season.
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Lions coach Dan Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes insisted this offseason they still believed in Okudah, but they also knew they had to upgrade a secondary that was the weak link of an otherwise strong roster.
When the Lions went free-agent shopping this spring, signing Cam Sutton, Emmanuel Moseley and C.J. Gardner-Johnson to starter-level deals, Okudah became the odd man out. The Lions had no desire to pick up the fifth-year option on Okudah’s rookie contract, and Tuesday’s deal emerged as a win-win for everyone involved.
Okudah gets a fresh start with the team he hoped to play for coming out of college, in a spot where he won’t have the specter of being the No. 3 pick hanging over his head and will have the chance to compete for a starting job.
And the Lions clear more than $5 million in cap room, rainy-day money they should be able to use to bolster their contending roster, plus receive extra draft capital (the No. 159 overall pick) for a backup who was no lock to make the team.
Along with Moseley and Sutton, the Lions’ projected starting outside cornerbacks this fall, and Gardner-Johnson, who will play as a safety, slot cornerback or both, the Lions return Jerry Jacobs, who was ahead of Okudah on the depth chart, and Will Harris, who has value in sub packages and on special teams. They are also in the market to take a cornerback in the draft.
There is no guarantee whatever cornerback the Lions take will be better than Okudah, who at 24 — less than two years older than this year’s top cornerback prospect, Illinois’ Devon Witherspoon — still has plenty of untapped potential.
But with nine picks this year, including multiple selections in Rounds 1, 2, 5 and 6, Holmes has upped his odds of being able to make meaningful additions to the Lions roster.
The third-year GM has done a masterful job so far of acquiring talent. He has nailed two of the Lions’ three first-round picks since Okudah: Penei Sewell and Aidan Hutchinson. (The third, Jameson Williams, last year’s second first-round choice, has barely played because of injury). He has also found gems such as wideout Amon-Ra St. Brown and edge rusher James Houston later in the draft.
Holmes has proven to be more apt than most, albeit in a small sample size, in identifying talent, but even he has had whiffs, including injury cases such as Levi Onwuzurike and Ifeatu Melifonwu.
Okudah’s NFL career isn’t over, and those who know him are pulling for a rebound. But his time in Detroit will go down as another example of how fickle the draft can be.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.