Getty Reggie Ragland celebrates after the Super Bowl in Miami.
The Detroit Lions aren’t finished remaking their defense this offseason, and according to reports, they are adding a Super Bowl champion to the mix in Reggie Ragland.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, the Lions are signing Ragland, the former Alabama linebacker as well as the former Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills linebacker.
ILB Reggie Ragland has agreed to terms with the Detroit Lions, per source. Former first-round pick won Super Bowl with the Chiefs.
Ragland just won a Super Bowl with the Chiefs in the 2019-2020 season. With the Lions, he will now be counted on to add some depth at the middle linebacker spot and compete there.
Reggie Ragland Stats
Since busting into the league in 2016 as a second round pick of the Buffalo Bills, Ragland has endured a slow start to his career. He injured his ACL in training camp, and then was bumped back on the depth chart. Ragland was then traded to the Chiefs for a fourth round draft pick.
In Kansas City, Ragland has come into his own a bit and has 158 tackles, 2.5 career sacks, 1 fumble recovery, 1 interception and 1 touchdown in his career. In the Super Bowl, Ragland collected 2 tackles.
Lions Free Agency Signings
The Lions have reached reported free agency agreements with offensive lineman Halapoulivaati Vaitai, linebacker Jamie Collins, quarterback Chase Daniel and defensive lineman Nick Williams. Additionally, they’ve added Danny Shelton, Desmond Trufant and Jayron Kearse. Duron Harmon is coming in via trade. The group upgrades some important spots on the team, and will help the Lions boost the spots that are most needed for 2020. The Lions have managed to get things going quickly and effectively this offseason in free agency to be able to try and reshape their team.
It’s true the defense has been the biggest positive in terms of a remake at the spot, and that will continue with the addition of Ragland to the defense.
Lions Defense named Free Agency Winner
One side of the ball that needed the most change was the defense. After a horrible pair of seasons under Matt Patricia, there’s already been some big changes on that side of the ball. How will that impact the team when all is said and done? The returns will be very positive if this new piece is to be right.
In a piece breaking down some winners and losers of free agency, Pro Football Focus and writer Ben Linsey took a closer look at what the Lions have done, and found them to be a winner. Here’s a look at what he wrote on that:
“The spotlight is on Darius Slay, particularly after he publicly acknowledged last night that he wants out of Detroit, and as of Thursday morning, a deal has been put in place to send Slay to the Eagles. That is not ideal for the Lions. Despite the down year from a grading standpoint in 2019 (56.4 PFF grade), Slay remains one of the top cornerbacks in the NFL. During the five-year stretch from 2014 to 2018, he ranked eighth among qualifying cornerbacks in overall grade, and he routinely draws shadow assignments against the opposing team’s best wide receiver, making those results all-the-more impressive.
As all that trade speculation took place, the Lions went about improving their coverage to soften the blow of his inevitable loss. They signed former New England Patriots linebacker Jamie Collins, a player who has been outstanding in coverage and as a blitzer for New England over his career but struggled when traded to the Cleveland Browns. He’s an intriguing option for a Lions team that needed an injection of talent into their linebacking corps. The hope is that the transition to Matt Patricia’s defense is smoother than the one Collins made four seasons ago in Cleveland.
Detroit then addressed the secondary with two more moves, trading for Patriots safety Duron Harmon (shocker, I know) and signing former Atlanta Falcons cornerback Desmond Trufant. Both players were drafted in 2013, and neither has recorded an overall grade of 65.0 or lower over the course of their NFL careers, rarely dipping below 70.0.
Harmon has been a rangy playmaker on the back end of the Patriots’ defense at free safety. He is one of just eight safeties with 10 or more regular-season interceptions over the past three seasons. Trufant is a 6-foot cornerback who came into the NFL with sub-4.4 speed, and he figures to fit well into a Lions defense that plays a lot of press-man coverage. He’s not quite the same player as Slay, but he has shown in Atlanta that he is fully capable of being the No. 1 guy on the outside. Both players, along with Collins, should improve the Lions coverage in 2020 despite the loss of their top player.”
The Lions still theoretically have a hole at pass rusher and could need another cornerback. All those issues can be straightened out in the draft, which could help the Lions over the top in terms of getting their most important side of the ball turned around.
Even though it’s early on in the offseason, the Lions could be huge winners as it relates to remaking their roster in a key way. Ragland simply adds another piece to this mix.
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