5 Lions who have offered the team almost nothing in 2021

4. TE Darren Fells

In fairness to Fells, he’s basically an offensive lineman disguised as a tight end (6-foot-7, 270 pounds). The Lions also have a clear-cut No. 1 tight end in T.J. Hockenson, and don’t have two or more tight ends on the field all that often (88 snaps all season so far, according to Sharp Football).

Over the last two games, Brock Wright has been elevated to the active roster and played a total of 33 offensive snaps at tight end for the Lions. Over the same span, Fell has seen 43 offensive snaps (a season-high 28 in Week 8, surely owing mostly to a blowout loss to the Eagles).

Not that the return would have been great, probably a conditional seventh-round pick, but Fells seemed like a possible trade candidate for the Lions heading into the deadline. He’s not part of the future in Detroit, and he’s barely part of the present in a notable way (five targets, 17.8 percent route participation–the latter according to Player Profiler). There is a better way to deploy a second tight end, and the Lions started moving that direction with Wright over the two games before the bye.

Fells is in line for less work after the bye, and he’s done almost nothing to this point anyway.