Lions Offseason Priorities: Top 3 Free Agents Detroit Needs to Keep
The Lions have 19 free agents — but if Detroit wants to keep its Super Bowl window wide open, three defenders must be at the top of Brad Holmes' list. Letting them walk could cost more than just cap space.
Video Transcript
What's up, everybody?
We got another report card grade.
Still on the defense.
I think offense might be- actually, I'll come back to offense.
I'll definitely do some Decker, Mahogany.
I'll do the offensive line.
I'll do most of the offense, actually.
but we're on defense.
We did Hutchinson.
We did Jack Campbell.
Now, let's do another stud.
That's Al-Qadin Muhammad.
Absolute amaz- you know, great season.
Most of his career, eleven sacks, was just phenomenal all around.
Had three sacks against the Raven- or ex- against the Cowboys and two and a half sacks against the Ravens, both of which were big reasons why we won.
Now, he is going to be an unrestricted free agent, so that's where it gets tricky, you know?
Do we think that AQM is good enough to be on the opposite side of Hutch, or do we think that Hutch was so good this year that it rubbed off onto AQM, and we could get an upgrade where we have a left defensive end, right defensive end, where they are both fifteen-sack guys?
I know it's kind of asking for a lot, and there's a little piece of me that thinks Al-Qadin Muhammad could be a, you know, at least twelve to thirteen sack guy.
He was similar to Hutch, where it came in, in bulges, you know?
He had two, he had two and a half, he had three.
So that is, eight and a half of his eleven sacks came in three games.
That is why, you know, I couldn't give him the best grade he could get, despite having a career season.
And now, how I judge these and how I do these is based off the player.
It's not compared to, like, any, any other player; it's compared to him.
So I'm not comparing him to Hutch.
I'm not comparing him to, like, general defensive ends, where Miles Garrett gets an A plus, you know, Aidan Hutchinson gets an A. I give Al-Qadin Muhammad an A minus, and I think he's deserving of that grade.
He helped the Lions out in at least two games.
those two games were big ones, the Ravens and the Cowboys.
He had five and a half sacks between those two games.
So even if you're contributing that much in just little, like a few games, that still helps you get, get wins.
And if you could get players that could help you steal wins s- themselves, that's huge.
So AQM deserves and gets an A minus.
