There aren’t many areas on the Detroit Lions’ roster you can point to and say that the team MUST upgrade during the offseason. One of the few spots you can say that about is the edge rusher group.
The Lions are set at one of their two starting spots for the long haul with Aidan Hutchinson, who saw his 2024 campaign end early after emerging as the Defensive Player of the Year candidate over the first six weeks. Thankfully, Hutchinson is expected to make a full recovery in time for the start of the 2025 campaign.
But things are murky behind him. Za’Darius Smith will turn 33 this year and isn’t a lock to return. Even if he does, Smith will be a free agent next year, so the Lions need a long-term solution opposite Hutchinson, on top of more depth in general.
One NFL analyst, Bleacher Report’s Gary Davenport, floated a trade scenario that Lions fans will love. He proposes the Lions trade for Cincinnati Bengals star edge rusher Trey Hendrickson. The proposal sees the Lions trade a 2025 second-round pick, and a 2026 third-round selection.
It’s not just a matter of a Detroit pass rush that all but evaporated when Aidan Hutchinson got hurt last year. It’s the matter of where the Lions are as a franchise. If they’re going to make their first-ever Super Bowl, the time is now.
Hendrickson and Hutchinson would be a phenomenal duo on the edge. The Lions have the salary-cap space to make an extension for Hendrickson work.
Push your chips into the middle of the table, Lions. Get what you can for a player who won’t be extended, Bengals.
We could not agree more with Davenport’s stance here. If the Lions have a chance to add an elite edge rusher like Hendrickson, who is coming off a season in which he led the NFL in sacks, they should be all over it.
But it remains to be seen if the Bengals would play ball here. Bengals director of player personnel, Duke Tobin, has made it clear the team wants to keep their star defender, who is entering the final year of his contract, but Tobin isn’t keen on paying top-of-the-market money.
“Has he earned a pay raise and a bump in an extension … he has,” Tobin said of a Hendrickson extension, per Kevin Patra of NFL.com. “We’re cognizant of that, and we will give that to him. But whether we agree on what that looks like is, is what is to be determined.
“… We can’t have guys at the top of the payroll in every position, right? We’ll do what we can,” Tobin added. “We’ll do what we feel is right, and we will try to get Trey re-signed. It’s not giving anybody an extension. It’s agreeing with somebody on an extension.”
It’s clear the Bengals are willing to pay Hendrickson more to keep him around, but if he rightly seeks a top-of-the-market deal, that’s where the two sides could reach an impasse, leading to Hendrickson demanding a trade, something he reportedly did last year when the two sides didn’t agree to an extension.
It’s uncertain if the package Davenport suggests here would be enough to get it done, but if so, Lions general manager Brad Holmes should immediately smash send on it. This is exactly the kind of deal a contender like the Lions should be making.
Having a duo of Hendrickson and Hutchinson would be the stuff dreams are made of and would propel the Lions’ defense to another level that would better position Detroit to win a Super Bowl.
From there, the Lions would have to give Hendrickson the bag to keep him happy, something they are in position to do with a healthy salary cap situation over the next few years. The Lions enter this offseason with $46.5 million to work with, according to Over the Cap.
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