The Detroit Lions very clearly still want to make a trade, but Dan Campbell warned on Monday that it takes two to tango.
With the NFL trade deadline now 24 hours away—4 p.m. ET on Tuesday—the Detroit Lions are in the spotlight as one of the primary teams expected to make a move. Ever since the loss of Aidan Hutchinson to injury in Week 6, they have been searching for edge rushers. The Lions haven’t been secret about their desires, either, as coach Dan Campbell has publicly said they are exploring their options, although he insists they aren’t going to be desperate.
On Monday, Campbell noted that they are indeed continuing to look, but seemed to indicate some friction with potential sellers.
“I don’t think (a trade) is entirely up to us,” Campbell said. “I can tell you we’re trying. Brad (Holmes) is trying and looked at everything. We really have. Made a ton of calls, and he’s been rolling on it. So we’ll see. We’ve still got a little bit of time here. We’ve got until tomorrow evening, so we’ll see what happens.”
The Lions have been linked, in particular, to Brown defensive end Za’Darius Smith, with ProFootballTalk even reporting that they expect a deal to get done by Monday. However, that has not transpired as of 3:40 p.m. ET on Monday.
Campbell noted that if the Lions don’t strike a deal during the trade deadline, they’ll be prepared to both move forward with the guys they have and look for other ways to add outside talent—including signing players off other teams’ practice squads.
“If it’s not (happening), we’re rolling,” Campbell said. “We’ve got our guys and we’re going, and that’s the bottom line. And if something doesn’t get done, we’ll start poaching some of these other practice squads, see if we can find some guys that we really like when they were coming out (of college) that have some ability, see if they can grow. And then we’ll continue to give our guys here on this roster a shot.”
In the meantime, the defensive end trade market continues to move on. Earlier on Monday, the Cardinals traded a sixth-round pick for Broncos depth edge rusher Baron Browning.
