With the No. 3 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, the Detroit Lions selected CB Jeff Okudah out of Ohio State.
Personally, I was not a huge fan of selecting a cornerback at No. 3 but I was a big fan of how Okudah played with the Buckeyes so I was willing to give it a chance.
Unfortunately, Okudah was playing for Lions head coach Matt Patricia, and he struggled during his rookie campaign.
After the Lions fired Patricia, they brought in Dan Campbell to be their head coach and Campbell hired a coaching staff that could relate to the players on the team, including Okudah.
Okudah expected to have a bounce-back season in 2021 but it was cut short when he suffered an Achilles injury in Week 1.
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Jeff Okudah shoots down speculation
Now, he is going into his third season in the league and there has been some speculation that the Lions could entertain moving him to safety.
Well, if moving Okudah to safety is something the Lions are considering, he has heard nothing about it.
“I haven't ever heard about playing a different position,” Okudah said. “I got drafted as a corner. Played corner in college. Played corner in high school. So honestly, I have never taken a snap at safety and never really gave it much thought. So, to answer your question, I'm a corner now, and I just play where I'm at.”
Dan Campbell says Okudah did a good job keeping a positive outlook, despite suffering a season-ending injury.
“I thought he did a good job. Look, that’s not easy. That’s not easy to do, when he really had progressed and worked himself through camp and got a little bit better. And really, before the injury, he made a couple of plays before that, to where he bounced back in the game and then that happens, and that’s not an easy thing to do. And, then he was hurt the year prior, but he did, he got it fixed,” Campbell said. “He attacked the surgery, the rehab. He was up here plenty. We saw a lot of him. He wanted to be around, so he’d be up here watching tape with the guys, be in meetings. Sometimes he’d come out to practice or scoot out there, and so he was still engaged and wanted to be around. Look, he did a pretty good job with it. There again, it’s not easy. It’s a hard thing to do, but it’s better than just totally disengaging and being away from it, and I don’t think that’s great for you, either.”
Nation, do you think the moving Jeff Okudah to safety would be a good move for the Lions?
