Welcome to the offseason and welcome to the time in which everyone's name is going to be brought up with every team. It's a lot of fun to try to predict where players are going to wind up whether it be through free agency or trade. Pro Football Focus' Brad Spielberger has an interesting one for the Detroit Lions.
He suggests that the Lions send a 2025 fourth-round pick, I'm guessing the one the Lions got from the Eagles in the D'Andre Swift trade, over to the Chargers for Pro Bowl edge rusher Khalil Mack.
That is pretty tempting when you first hear it. After all, Mack is a former Defensive Player of the Year, a five time All-Pro and an eight time Pro Bowler. Mack is also coming off a season in which he had a career high 17 sacks. That could surely help the Lions in their quest to win a Super Bowl in 2024.
Here's where the hesitancy comes into play though. Mack's contract is not team friendly. He's set to hit the final year of his contract next year and that has a cap hit of $38.5 million. That is an awful lot. The Lions could realistically get some younger pass rush help at a lot cheaper of a rate in free agency and the draft. If they wanted to trade for someone, they could do that too. But Mack is a very expensive one year rental. I say one year becasue he was rumored to be pondering retirement before this past season.
If the Lions do bring Mack back to the NFC North, they'll have to make sure that they can do some sort of restructure with Mack to make sure that they can still build in other areas. This whole trade idea seems unlikely though, so I don't think you'll have to worry about that if you're a Lions fan that's watching the Lions money.
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