Detroit Lions’ classy gesture catches eye of former player

A classy gesture from the Detroit Lions caught the eye of former Lions DT Damon “Snacks” Harrison.

Last week, the Detroit Lions traded for defensive end Za’Darius Smith, hoping to bolster their pass rush and run defense after suffering many injuries at the edge defender position. While fans were eager to see Smith play in a big “Sunday Night Football” contest with the Houston Texans, the coaching staff took a different approach.

Smith was scheduled to have his bye week prior to the trade, and the Lions wanted to honor that. So before he even came to the facility, the Lions gave him two days off. Smith used those days to check in on his Florida home and family, which had been impacted by recent hurricanes. When Smith arrived with the team on Friday, Lions coaches determined it was in everyone’s best interest if he didn’t play on Sunday.

“There was a thought about playing him, but we just felt like the right thing to do was just sit him this week, we just did,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “We’ll let him get his bearings and, there again, that’s a game off his body and now we can go.”

That gesture caught the eye of former Lions defensive tackle Damon “Snacks” Harrison.

A mere six years ago, Harrison was in a nearly identical situation in Detroit. He was traded to the Lions at the deadline, having not yet had his bye week. But because Detroit already had their bye, there was no break in the season for him. But unlike the current regime, the Lions immediately played Harrison, and the nose tackle ended up being the eighth player at the time to have played in 17 games in a season. Detroit opted not to start him in his first game in Detroit, but he still played 62 percent of snaps in his first game as a Lion.

So what did Harrison have to say about Campbell’s gesture with Smith?

“I’d run through an army tank for dude if he’d done that for me!” Harrison tweeted on Wednesday night. “I finally see what the players, staff, and city of Detroit see in him…Dan THE Man!!!”

While Harrison provided a nice bump for the Lions defense down the stretch of that 2018 season, his time in Detroit would come to an abrupt end in 2020. Despite handing him an extension in August of 2019, the Lions cut him six months later. At the time, Harrison called the move a “mutual parting,” but later he admitted he was “hell-bent” on leaving Detroit during the 2019 season.

You have to wonder if things would have played out differently for “Snacks” had there been different management in charge of Detroit back then.