Detroit Lions made some hard decisions they hope were the right ones

The Detroit Lions made some hard decisions in the process of cutting down to their final 53 man roster. Hopefully, they were the right ones.

The Detroit Lions have made the mandatory cuts needed to trim their roster down to the league limit of 53 players. The 2019 roster is set. For the moment.

The final cut down weekend in the NFL is a free-for-all every year. It doesn’t get the publicity that the free-agency frenzy does, mainly because the top end quality of free agency is usually much higher than what we find at the roster cut down to 53, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any diamonds in the rough.

Just last year at this time the Lions signed Romeo Okwara off the NFL discard heap called the ‘final cuts’ and he became a mainstay on a defense that improved over the course of the season. As a matter of fact, Okwara even led the team in sacks.

In a league filled with different systems and ideals of what types of players can contribute if not excel in them, Okwara is just a good example of the old saying that ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’.

Most years there aren’t any great players available unless it’s for salary cap reasons, but there will always be many different kinds of athletes to consider.

This, of course, is all started by teams making the difficult decisions of who will make their rosters and who won’t. Every year fans and media alike usually find moves they find surprising. For example, they might wonder why their favorite team released a receiver who caught everything in the exhibition season and kept one that might have had some drops or perhaps not that many opportunities in the preseason to show their value.

In the case of the 2019 Detroit Lions, there were some surprises that occurred during the final cuts. But it’s not over yet. It will take a day or two for the rosters to finally settle. If Lions general manager Bob Quinn decides to sign any free agents like they did last year with Okwara, that would lead to the corresponding release of other players to make room. So there are still more surprises that could happen.