After letting Alex Anzalone walk in free agency, the Detroit Lions placed a big spotlight on their remaining linebacker room - namely, Derrick Barnes.
The defender felt like a non-factor in 17 games with the Lions in 2025, despite four sacks and an interception on the year, in addition to eight stuffs. He needs to step up this year to make Detroit's choice to let Anzalone head to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with little resistance look a bit less shortsighted.
To Barnes' benefit, however, he hasn't needed to have explosive games to open the year (although his two sack outing against the New Orleans Saints in Week 1 was amazing). Instead, Anzalone's been making the Lions look good all on his own with multiple missed tackles and a 29.1 PFF grade to begin the year - the worst grade amongst linebackers.
Anzalone is making Lions look genius for not pursuing him in free agency
Anzalone is a captain for the Buccaneers, making a potential benching feel nearly impossible. And, it sounds like he still has the green light from head coach Todd Bowles, who is also on the hot seat in Tampa Bay:
“Well, he wasn’t the only one that missed tackles. I mean, we had a few guys miss tackles in the second half that led to some plays. We’ve just got to tackle better. … [I am] still confident in him. Like I said, we’ve got a lot of guys that [have] got a lot of things to clean up. If you put somebody on the bench for messing up, then everybody is on the bench.”
The veteran hadn't struggled with missed tackles in his last season with Detroit. In fact, he posted a career-high 6.9 percent missed tackle rate en-route to his third-best PFF grade, per Lions writer DB Keener.
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However, at 32 years old, it was time to move away from Anzalone as a starter. The team has gotten significantly younger on defense, and Anzalone no longer fit that timeline. The Lions also invested heavily in their captain, Jack Campbell, and that was more reason to step away from him in free agency.
Of course, it's unlikely that they could've imagined he'd have a step back this stark to begin the season. They're looking smarter at this point for having handed Campbell his extension and continuing to rely on Malcolm Rodriguez and Barnes - although, Campbell has to clean up his act through two games.
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