The Detroit Lions have shown commitment this offseason to re-tooling their defense. That movement has continued with the cutting of cornerback Nevin Lawson, per Pro Football Talk.
This move has come as a surprise to some considering his consistent role in the Lions defense over the last few years. It also leaves Teez Tabor opposite with Darius Slay, which is not an improvement. With a long offseason ahead, this takes close to $5 million off the books for the upcoming season.
Chris Burke of The Athletic referred to the move as almost imminent when Lions General Manager Bob Quinn talked about wanting players who can create turnovers.
When Bob Quinn talked about how much he was focused on finding guys who could force turnovers, the writing was on the wall here. https://t.co/Nwajd3Xpx2
— Chris Burke (@ChrisBurkeNFL) March 10, 2019
There are plans for this Lions defense. They should be after Landon Collins and are favorites to land Anthony Barr as well. Just those two moves improve the defense, and they have the number eight pick in the upcoming draft.
This team believes they are not that far away from being competitive, despite their down year. Right now, they are making every move they can to clear cap space, and Lawson is on the unfortunate end of that. With all this extra room, expect a splash to be made in free agency.
Lawson is a consistent cornerback who is serviceable. He should have no problem finding a job somewhere else. It will be weird to see him not donning Honolulu Blue and Silver after being a mainstay since he was a Lions fourth rounder in 2014.
As with T.J. Lang, there is more coming. This team is just giving themselves financial flexibility to improve where they can. The output of Lawson was just deemed not worth the $5 million of cap space he could have had. The Lions might surprise a lot of people during this free agency period.
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