As the Detroit Lions shape their 2022 offseason plan, these five free agents will not be back next season.
The Detroit Lions picked up their first win of the 2021 season in epic fashion over the Minnesota Vikings in Week 13. But this is still a 1-10-1 team in line to pick first in the 2022 draft, with two first-round picks providing an opportunity to add two premium young talents.
But the Lions can also add reinforcements via free agency. They currently have somewhere around $40 million in cap space for 2022, depending on the source, with the possibility to create more with some moves to offload veterans.
Free agency decisions for the Lions will also include who to bring back among their internal free agents, if anyone. Using Spotrac’s list of 2022 free agents as the guide, here are five free agents who will not be back with the Lions in 2022.
5 Detroit Lions free agents who won’t be back in 2022
5. CB/S Bobby Price
Price has played in 11 games for the Lions this season, starting two. But he played just 15 defensive snaps from Week 5-Week 12 (seven games), and he was inactive in Week 13. As long as the Lions have a mostly healthy set of defensive backs from here on out this season, more game day inactive statuses are coming. And even if Price is in uniform, the trend was toward him playing almost exclusively on special teams.
Bringing Price back won’t cost much. But the Lions shouldn’t, and surely won’t, bother making an effort to keep a replaceable extra defensive back.