The Lions traded cornerback Jeff Okudah to the Falcons for a fifth-round pick this week and head coach Dan Campbell pointed to the rest of the team’s offseason moves as a big reason why they moved the third overall pick of the 2020 draft.
During an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show, Campbell said that the team is “pleased with the upgrades that we’ve made” in the secondary over the last month. They signed cornerbacks Cam Sutton and Emmanuel Moseley in addition to adding safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson to round out a set of moves that pushed Okudah down the depth chart in Detroit.
“We really felt like, at this time, this is probably the best thing for us and for Jeff,” Campbell said. “A new change of scenery and give him a fresh start. We felt really good about our guys. And, look, man, I appreciate Jeff. He was a pro, he came to work, he busted his ass. He worked at it. He was coming off an injury last year and we just felt like, ‘You know what, this is the right thing to do right now.’”
Neither Campbell nor General Manager Brad Holmes were in Detroit when Okudah was drafted and his departure is the latest move that the team has made to turn the page from the past to what they hope will be a much brighter future.