You won’t see us here at The Majors Detroit jumping up and down with this signing, but the Lions have agreed to a 1-year deal with free agent Defensive Tackle Tyrunn Walker. The deal will be worth $1.75 million dollars with a $750k bonus. Walker will be only 25 years old next season and only has 23 games under his belt in two seasons of work for the Saints. According to Pro Football Focus, he played only 28 percent of the Saints defensive snaps last year, yet graded out as their second best defensive lineman at a +8.0 PFF rating. He earned that rating in only 306 total snaps and was credited with 18 Quarterback hurries and 2.5 sacks in only 197 pass rush snaps.
He could have been a restricted free agent this year, but the Saints choose not to tender him. I would argue, as would others around the NFL that the Saints just didn’t have the necessary cap space to do so and they would have loved to have him back.
Maybe we do have something to be excited about as Lions fans. Maybe, just maybe the Lions have found a diamond in the rough that could be a very functional defensive tackle for the franchise in 2015. Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network had this to say on Twitter:
You’ve probably never heard of new Lions DL Tyrunn Walker. I hadn’t either. The amount of interest by smart personnel people was staggering
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 13, 2015
It is unclear what role he will play on the Lions during the 2015 season. It is likely he will be the third defensive tackle on the roster. As of right now, he would be in the starting lineup along side Haloti Ngata if the season started today, however the Lions are not likely done adding defensive tackles to their roster.
The deep free agent market for defensive tackles has seemingly already dried up, however the NFL draft should yield some interesting prospects as well.
Nick Fairley still hasn’t technically signed with another team, but it has been reported that the front office has moved on from him. There are a lot more available free agent Defensive Tackles still available if the Lions were to transition to a 3-4 defense, but the market is almost empty of stereotypical 4-3 DT’s. There aren’t any elite names left on the list, but the Lions should be calling the agents for Chris Canty, Jarvis Jenkins, Red Bryant, and Randy Starks to see if they can convince them to bring their talents to the Motor City.