Detroit Lions Hidden Gems: 3 Secret Superstars on the 2025 roster

“Brain Drain.” It’s the one term that every Lions fan is already sick and tired of hearing.

Of course, when you lose two of the best coordinators in the NFL in Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn to their own well-deserved head coaching jobs, that’s going to be a story. It doesn’t help that center Frank Ragnow, one of the NFL’s best, toughest, and smartest players at his position, recently decided to retire. That is a lot of IQ points walking out the door in the offseason.

So now, it’s up to new offensive coordinator John Morton and new defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard, along with whomsoever plays center in 2025 and beyond, to pick up the slack. One thing the Replacements will almost certainly have is a better and more fortunate injury situation, because regression to the mean should kick in, and the Lions won’t have an astonishing 24 different players on injured reserve (WOOF) as they did at various points throughout the 2024 season.

There’s still Dan Campbell. There’s still a dynamic offense, and the fact that Morton worked his way up from senior offensive assistant to passing game coordinator to his current position, which gives him an intimate knowledge of the Ben Johnson playbook, along with the opportunity to riff on it in his own ways. There’s still a defense that will benefit immeasurably from a cleaner bill of health, and the fact that Sheppard has been with the franchise since 2021 as a linebackers coach. So Glenn’s schematic and motivational tactics are not unfamiliar.

And finally, there’s a team that went 15-2 in the regular season before the injury stuff became officially ridiculous, the thing just ran out of gas, and what happened against the Washington Commanders in the Divisional Round.

Brain Drain is real, but so are the Lions in spite of it. If the 2025 team is to capitalize on the Super Bowl dreams that were so present in 2024, they’ll need the entire roster to make that happen. In the continuation of our “Hidden Gems” series, we look at three players who could be (or already are) Secret Superstars for the Lions — one underrated veteran, free-agent signing, and draft pick.

Underrated Veteran: Safety Kerby Joseph

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Since he came into the NFL as a third-round pick out of Illinois in 2022, Kerby Joseph has more interceptions than any other player in the league — 17, including and especially the nine passes he picked off in 2024. But that may not be his most important statistic. The most pertinent number in Joseph’s career so far? Over the last two seasons, and a total of 1,450 coverage snaps and 89 targets, he’s allowed just two touchdowns — none in 2023, and two in 2024.

There are defenders who are boom-or-bust when it comes to interceptions. Cornerback DaRon Bland of the Dallas Cowboys had nine interceptions, and an NFL-record five pick-sixes in 2023 after recording five picks in his rookie season of 2022. But Bland had no picks in 2024, allowing four touchdowns and an opponent passer rating of 116.1 in an injury-complicated season. That’s not to bag on Bland at all; he’s a very good player when healthy. It’s more to amplify that the combination of production and prevention Joseph has established in his career is really, really hard to do.

It’s even harder to maintain from season to season.

It’s also true of Joseph —and this is incredibly important in today’s NFL — that he can bedevil enemy quarterbacks from anywhere in the defense. Safeties must be multiple these days, and Joseph is. Last season, four of his interceptions came from the deep middle of the field safety position, which he played on 40% of his snaps. Two came when he was playing split-safety in the deep third. Three happened when he was playing in the box, and while he didn’t have any interceptions from the slot, he played there on 9% of his snaps, and allowed one catch on three targets, and had a pass deflection.

That’s after a 2023 season in which he played 814 of his 1,072 snaps as a high safety, the ninth-highest in the NFL. Basically, wherever you put Kerby Joseph, he’s going to erase things.

And it’s not as if he’s afraid to get grimy in the run game — quite the opposite. Joseph can scream down from the deep third to pressure the quarterback as well as any free safety.

So, why is Joseph underrated? Well, I probably don’t need to tell Lions fans that Joseph doesn’t get the national praise he deserves. I’m proud to be one of the people who vote for the AP Most Valuable Player, All-Pro teams, and all other awards. I was the only person to vote for Joseph as Defensive Player of the Year after that season. Not that Broncos cornerback Patrick Surtain Jr. didn’t deserve the award per se, but I thought that Joseph would get a bit more love there.

Joseph will have to be satisfied with the four-year, $85 million contract extension with $23,121 million guaranteed he signed this offseason. There’s also his status as the best free safety in the game, and one half of the best safety duo in the NFL along with Brian Branch when Branch is in a pure safety role.

Which isn’t a bad place to be.

Underrated Free-Agent Signing: CB Avonte Maddox

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Avonte Maddox’s career with the Philadelphia Eagles, the team that selected him in the fourth round of the 2018 draft out of Pitt, was an up-and-down excursion. He was never a full-time starter, topping out at nine starts last season, and he allowed an opponent passer rating of over 100 in four of his seven NFL seasons.

Perhaps it was the Vic Fangio effect, as Fangio made the most out of every Eagles defender in his care last season, but 2024 marked Maddox’s best campaign to date. That’s when he allowed 15 catches on 29 targets for 134 yards, 78 yards after the catch, one touchdown, no interceptions, six pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 75.9.

It was a good time for the Lions to swoop in and offer him a one-year, $1,422.5 million contract with $1,197.5 million guaranteed, which is great value if Maddox plays the way he did last season.

268 of Maddox’s 359 snaps in 2024 were in the slot, and all six of his pass breakups happened there. Whether he was trailing to the open field on vertical stuff, or closing and clamping down on shorter stuff, Maddox had an awareness of the position that we really hadn’t seen before.

If Maddox can be That Guy in the slot, it opens up other things for Kelvin Sheppard’s defense. Maybe it allows the aforementioned Kerby Joseph to play more up top. Perhaps Brian Branch runs more in the box and the deep third as a pure safety. At the very least, Maddox gives quality depth in a slot role that means more than ever in the NFL.

Underrated Draft Pick: EDGE Ahmed Hassanein

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When I wrote my pre-draft piece for SB Nation about the eight defensive prospects who could be Secret Superstars on the right teams, Boise State’s Ahmed Hassanein stood out for a few reasons. The production was a factor, as the 6’2, 267-pound Hassanein recorded 24 sacks, 115 total pressures, and 62 stops in his final two seasons with the Broncos.

There’s also the fact that he did all of that with such limited experience. Hassanein was born in America, but moved to Cairo, Egypt to live with his father at age six. He didn’t start playing football until 2018, when he moved back to the United States, and his brother (a football coach) got him into it.

Despite that relative lack of time with the game, Hassanein has a lot on the ball in a lot of respects. And with further development, he could make the position where the Lions got him — the 196th overall pick in the sixth round — look like a ridiculous bargain.

“Incredible story by the way, but look, again, that’s not why we acquired him,” general manager Brad Holmes said of the pick and the player. “We acquired him because he plays with his hair on fire, and as, let’s call it developmental, as he is, he just – he plays hard. We talk about just – what do you have to do at that position? You’ve got to set edges and win rushes, and when I say win rushes, it’s not just getting a sack, you can win rushes just by harassment and power and collapsing the pocket and just sheer effort.

“So, we just liked the upside of him, we like his football character, his work ethic, his passion. He was so fired up on the phone to get here, that’s the type of stuff you want to hear, but we just – he’s been one of those guys that sometimes they start off as one of the favorites and then sometimes they might drift off because you see so much and you do so much film, but he’s a guy that just kept staying on the steady climb and ascension the more and more and more we watched of him. So, fired up about him.”

Holmes is absolutely right about Hassanein’s play style. Whether he’s on the edge (which he was on 93% of his snaps last season) or kicking inside, he brings as much violence and effort to the game as he possibly can. And when that aligns with the pass-rush plans he already has, watch out.

“I just think some growth,” assistant general manager Ray Agnew said of what Hassanein needs to bring it with the same force in the NFL. “It will be some growing pains on this level because you’ve got pretty good football players on this level. I just see him as he gets taught more tools in his tool belt as far as a pass rusher – using his hands better, learning when to rush with leverage, learning when you have the sweet spot and turn the corner, so just learning some nuances of the game.”

Hassanein’s life has already been a fascinating journey, and now, he’s got another one to look forward to.

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions).