Pride of Detroit
Check out your 2024 movers on defense and special teams in the Detroit Lions year-end stock report.
With the Detroit Lions’ 2024 season over, it’s time to look back on your biggest movers from this year. Let’s dive in:
Stats: 28 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 1 force fumble
It’s hard to oversell just how much of a win this season was for Levi Onwuzurike. Without context, he had a season hampered by a handful of injuries and with inconsistent, but promising, production. With context though, this has to have been the best case scenario for his 2024 season.
Onwuzurike spent essentially his entire career until 2024 trying to get past a back injury via surgery, rehab, and more. It wasn’t clear whether he would ever play football again, let alone be anything more than a shell of himself. With time, we saw him grow into that and so much more. If he can build on what was functionally a rookie season, the game should continue to slow down from him and I’d expect more growth into 2025, so long as he can remain healthy.
Stats: 56 tackles, 2 int, 11 passes defended, 1 forced fumble, 2 fumble recoveries
The Lions traded for Davis in the offseason in what may be the closest thing Brad Holmes has ever done to reaching for a need. The Lions had a bare cupboard, with the memory of getting burned by the 49ers in the NFC Championship game fresh in their minds. The Lions went out and got Davis, whom the Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t see a future with, and took a one-season flyer on him. Now, it’s looking like he should be a Lion for much longer. He excelled in Aaron Glenn’s scheme, and was essentially on an island against opposing WR1s all season. His impact wasn’t truly felt until the Lions lost him to a broken jaw to end the season, at which point it was painfully clear that re-signing him has to be a priority for the Lions. This match was a clear win both for Davis and for the Lions.
Stats: 1 tackle
The Brodric Martin experiment is two years in and has almost nothing to show for it. That’s not metaphorical, either—Martin has played in five games total and accounted for 4 tackles including just two games and one tackle in 2024.
The Lions drafted him knowing Martin was raw; they placed a bet on his upside. With that, though, is the expectation that he’ll make progress. We didn’t see much of that in his limited action. Martin missed the first several months of the season with a knee injury, but when he did see the field, it wasn’t pretty. Martin was often pushed several yards downfield on inside runs, including near the goal line. That’s a borderline impressive feat for a man of his size to let that happen.
The results just aren’t...
