Faced with the possibility of losing their best pass rusher in free agency, DE Ezekiel Ansah was designated as the franchise player by the Detroit Lions on Tuesday. This was an expected move that would pay him $17.5 million in the current year if the two sides would not be able to reach a long-term agreement by mid-July and he starts to play on the one-year tender.
The Lions announced the move ahead of this week’s NFL combine, where free-agent negotiations tend to ramp up. The exact dollar figure won’t be determined until the NFL sets the salary cap for next season in the coming weeks.
Since the player’s breakout 14½-sack season in the year 2015, he’s been limited to 14 combined sacks with 12 in the year 2017, over the past two seasons. A variety of injuries have cost him just five games but limited him to a lot more.
Ansah turns 29 in May. With Matt Patricia, the new coach and his staff coming in, it would make sense to watch if the player could put it all together from health and production standpoints in a new scheme before a multi-year investment is made that would likely cost the Detroit Lions at least around two to three times the amount of guaranteed cash they are now set to pay him for the current season.
The Detroit Lions indeed have very less in the way of other proven pass rushers. Last season the closest pursuer post of Ansah’s 12 sacks, was the former sixth-rounder, Anthony Zettel. Two years ago, when Ansah’s pass-rush production was virtually nonexistent, Detroit counted on Kerry Hyder, who had appeared in one career game before breaking out with eight sacks.
So, if the two sides would not be able to find common ground before the season, the Detroit Lions would hope for Ansah to rediscover his 2015 form and create a problem for them to counter next offseason. It would be fun to watch how he fits in Patricia’s scheme, as the defensive-minded coach has had plenty of talented pass rushers but a few with Ansah’s unique traits.
