Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell spoke with media members at the NFL league meetings on Tuesday morning and he talked about how the Lions have a newfound urgency at cornerback since they released Cameron Sutton after an arrest warrant was issued for him and he has been on the run for the last three weeks.
There’s options in free agency and Campbell said the Lions are exploring those options, but this situation presents the chance for the Lions to take a major swing and shore up their corner position for the long run. Here’s what I’m proposing:
The Lions should make a trade with the Broncos for Patrick Surtain. There’s been a lot of buzz around the idea of the Broncos trading Surtain. This is something that’s been talked about going back to the the trade deadline this past season when Adam Schefter reported that “many sources around the league believe the Broncos would be willing to listen to trade interest in almost any player on the defensive side.”
Obviously Surtain was maybe considered to be untouchable at the time, but now the Broncos are in a place where they are about to embark on a rebuild and with Surtain’s deal almost up, they would have to pick up his very expensive fifth year option and then sign him to new lucrative contract after that. They’d have to do all that while presumably trying to find a quarterback since they’re out of range from the top ones in this years draft.
The Lions can come in and offer the Broncos a chance to relieve themselves from having to make a big money offer to Surtain very soon and give them more assets to use in a trade up scenario for this years draft. Here’s the offer that the Lions could make.
Lions get: Pat Surtain and the 147th pick
Broncos get: The 29th pick and a 2025 fourth-round pick
That might not seem a like a lot, but it really is. Surtain would become the first cornerback to be traded for more than a third-round pick since 2019 when the Rams traded two first round picks for Jalen Ramsey. This is just something that doesn’t happen a lot. I went back to 2010 and I couldn’t find another example of a team getting a first-round pick for a cornerback.
You might think that giving away a first is too much, but look at it like this, if the Lions score a very good player at 29, this is money they’d have to spend at some point anyways. Why not spend it now when you have a chance to win the Super Bowl in 2024? Plus Surtain is just 23-years-old. The same age as a lot of the rookies that are getting picked in this draft.
Considering the short term and inexpensive nature of the way that the Lions sign free agents, having Surtain on the books would likely not upset the apple cart here. The Lions will have plenty of money for the future. Right now they’re slated to have the second highest cap space in the league next year. That’s, of course, before the extensions of Jared Goff and Amon-Ra St. Brown and before the fifth year option for Penei Sewell gets picked up.
On the Broncos side of things, they now have an extra first-round pick that they can try to package to move up to the top five where they can have a shot to draft one of the drafts top quarterbacks and get their rebuild going. Otherwise they stay at 12 and try their luck later with Bo Nix or Michael Penix on day two.
I think this is a win/win for both teams and it’s a move that would have a major impact on the futures of both franchises.