The Lions should consider an easy flier on former Ram Terrell Burgess

The Detroit Lions should be open to most opportunities to add talent, but the recently waived Terrell Burgess makes a level of extra sense.

It appeared to be day for safeties to get waived on Tuesday. The Las Vegas Raiders waived former first-round pick Johnathan Abram, and the Los Angeles Rams waived Terrell Burgess.

Putting in a claim on Abram means assuming the remainder of a first-round contract, and he’s not nearly good enough a player to put that on the table for a lot of teams. But from a Lions’ perspective, Burgess carries a bit more intrigue.

Burgess was a third-round pick by the Rams in 2020 out of Utah. An injury shortened his rookie season, as he played just seven games. He played 16 games in 2021, starting two, with most of his snaps on special teams (303, vs. 90 defensive snaps). He played in seven games for the Rams this season with one start, with a total of 82 defensive snaps.

Terrell Burgess makes some sense as a flier for the Detroit Lions

In 2020, and for years before that, Lions general manager Brad Holmes was the Rams’ director of scouting. So he surely gained great knowledge of Burgess, and played a key role in L.A. taking him just outside the top-100 overall picks (No. 104 overall).

In his final season at Utah, 2019, Burgess had 81 total tackles (50 solo, 7.5 tackles for loss).

The Lions are, frankly, thin at safety. Ifeatu Melifonwu seems like a candidate to go on IR, and Brady Breeze would ideally never have to be called up to the active roster. Burgess would be an upgrade to depth, and he may simply need a better opportunity than the Rams could give him with two capable starting safeties.

The Lions could say the same about their starting safety situation, with DeShon Elliott and rookie revelation Kerby Joseph. But Burgess in an inexpensive flier, making about $500,000 for the rest of this season and due to make $1.1 million in 2023 (the final year of his contract).