Detroit Lions

The Lions had added some depth to their secondary.

Detroit announced on Tuesday that the club has signed safety Chuck Clark.

Clark, who turns 31 in April, spent last season with the Steelers. He appeared in 15 contests with five starts, playing 44 percent of defensive snaps and 48 percent of special teams snaps in games played.

Clark previously played the 2024 season with the Jets, starting 12 games. While he missed the 2023 season with a torn ACL, Clark played his first six seasons with the Ravens, starting 63 games for the club.

In 123 career appearances with 80 starts, Clark has registered five interceptions, 37 passes defensed, seven forced fumbles, and 4.5 sacks.

When Lions center Frank Ragnow retired last year, he had to pay the Lions to leave.

Lions President Rod Wood confirmed that the Lions required Ragnow to pay back a portion of his signing bonus, which NFL teams are permitted to do when a player retires with seasons remaining on his contract. Wood said that’s what the Lions always do when a player under contract chooses to walk away.

“Our precedent goes all the way back to Barry Sanders,” Wood told the Detroit Free Press. “And if Barry Sanders paid back money. . . . And I think the reality is, they’re not paying back their money, they’re returning our money. ‘Cause they were paid in advance for services that they hadn’t completed.”

Both Sanders and Calvin Johnson, arguably the two greatest players in Lions franchise history, were required by the team to pay back bonus money when they retired. In both cases, that caused friction between the franchise and the Hall of Famers, but Wood insists it’s good business and only fair for a player to pay back the money for services he didn’t render.

“If we signed, let’s use [Jahmyr] Gibbs. We sign Gibbs to a contract tomorrow and we give him a $20 million signing bonus and he retires on Friday, are we entitled to the $20 million back?” Wood said.

Wood wouldn’t say how much Ragnow paid back, but based on his $6 million signing bonus and the two years remaining on his four-year contract at the time of his retirement, he owed the Lions $3 million. It’s unclear whether that money factored into Ragnow’s attempt to come out of retirement last year, an attempt that was aborted when he failed his physical.

In Wood’s view, the Lions are absolutely justified in taking back the money they’re contractually entitled to.

“It’s the Lions’ money,” Wood said. “It’s not the player’s money.”

The Lions have not made any official pronouncements about their plans for left tackle in the wake of Taylor Decker’s release, but head coach Dan Campbell knows what direction he’d like to go at the position.

Penei Sewell played left tackle in college before moving to the right side upon joining the Lions as a 2021 first-round pick. Speculation about a move back to the left side began to swirl when Decker was considering retirement and has not abated since Decker’s departure.

On Monday, Campbell told reporters at the league meeting in Arizona that his preference is for Sewell to move and that Sewell is prepared for a change.

“He’s ready to do that,” Campbell said, via Albert Breer of SI.com.

Campbell said nothing has been set in stone yet, but it appears to be a safe bet that Sewell will be on Jared Goff’s blindside come the fall.

Wide receiver Kalif Raymond’s choice about where to play in 2026 came down to a pair of familiar options.

Raymond fielded offers from teams like the Seahawks and 49ers in free agency this month, but he whittled his choices down to a pair of NFC North teams. There was a chance to return to the Lions for a sixth season and an opportunity to rejoin a former coach in Chicago. Raymond opted for the chance to play for Bears head coach Ben Johnson, who had been the offensive coordinator in Detroit before leaving for their divisional rivals in 2025.

“I wanted to play in Ben’s offense,” Raymond said, via Dan Pompei of TheAthletic.com. “He’s extraordinarily creative, and honestly, you can be in any spot on the offense, and he will find a way to get you the ball. Just to be under him is a great privilege.”

Johnson said he likes Raymond as a veteran presence in a receiving corps topped by young players Rome Odunze and Lester Burden. He also thinks the wideout is “capable of a bigger role in our offense than what he had” with the Lions last season, so the choice to move to a new city could result in a higher profile along with a change in uniform.

The lawyer representing Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold has issued another statement insisting that Arnold had no role in an effort to forcibly recover stolen goods from property rented by Arnold in Florida.

The full text of the statement from attorney Tim Jansen, as posted by Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, appears below.

“We want to address recent reporting that has inaccurately characterized Terrion Arnold’s alleged connection to this matter. Claims that Mr. Arnold was ‘at the center’ of text message communications related to this incident are entirely misleading and reflect a gross negligence in accurately reporting the facts.

“In reality, the collection of messages in question consists of more than 300 individual texts. Within that volume, Mr. Arnold’s name appears only a handful of times, approximately five, and only in passing references by third parties. At no point do these messages demonstrate that Mr. Arnold was directly involved in any conversations related to the alleged conduct.

“There are no text messages showing Mr. Arnold communicating with any individuals about this matter, nor is there any evidence suggesting his participation or involvement in the underlying events. Any implication otherwise is unsupported by the facts and unfairly misrepresents his position.

“We urge the public and media to rely on accurate, verified information rather than speculation. Mr. Arnold maintains his position that he had no involvement in this situation, and the available evidence clearly supports that conclusion.”

Birkett notes that Arnold was named by his first name nine times in the texts, which were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Birkett adds that two of the six defendants have confessed their role in the kidnapping and assault plot to prosecutors.

Notwithstanding Jansen’s multiple statements professing Arnold’s innocence, Arnold rented the Airbnb that was allegedly robbed, twice. Arnold apparently made the initial report to police regarding the theft. Whether he was or wasn’t involved in or aware of the effort to retrieve the property is separate from whether the text messages implicate him.

As Birkett explains, the investigation continues.

One lingering question is whether prosecutors can extract evidence that could be used to charge Arnold from the six who have been charged. Starting with the two who confessed.

Again, Arnold hasn’t been charged. That doesn’t mean there’s no way he ever will be. Even if he is, it doesn’t mean any charges could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Lions General Manager Brad Holmes shrugged off talk of a rift with head coach Dan Campbell about the team’s direction by saying the two men are in “total lockstep” and Campbell sent a similar message on Friday.

The Lions are trying to rebound from missing the playoffs and that has led to a lot of changes to the roster, but Campbell said that his relationship with Holmes is in as good a place as it has been since the two began working together in Detroit in 2021.

“Brad and myself do everything together,” Campbell said at a Crain’s Detroit Business event, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “And despite what’s been out there, that’s a bunch of — listen, we’re golden, man. We are as good as we’ve ever been, we want to win and we’re going to get it right.”

Campbell expressed confidence that the two men are “going to get back to what we’ve been before last year.” Accomplishing that task will be the easiest way to put questions about their working relationship and the soundness of their plans to rest.

A bizarre case regarding alleged robberies and allegedly extreme efforts to recover stolen property has not yet resulted in charges being pursued against Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold. Arnold nevertheless continues to linger on the fringes of the case.

Via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Arnold was mentioned “multiple times” in text messages generated in connection with a kidnapping, armed robbery, and assault case that has resulted in, to date, felony charges against six different people. The text messages were obtained by the Free Press via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Arnold was not a recipient of any of the text messages.

The alleged thefts that sparked the case happened at an Airbnb that Arnold had rented in Largo, Florida. Arnold himself filed the original police report that high-end bags, guns, jewelry, a cellphone, and $100,000 in cash had been stolen.

Boakai Hilton was the alleged mastermind; the presiding judge wrote in a prior order that an ensuing retrieval of the property through allegedly illegal means resulted directly from “Arnold and his friends” deciding to “take matters into their own hands.”

Attorney Tim Jansen downplayed the references to Arnold.

“His expectations are he’s not going to be charged,” Jansen told Birkett. “He hasn’t been charged and I haven’t seen these text message[s] but they obviously have them and they haven’t charged [him]. The fact that he knows some of these people is hardly evidence he committed a crime and we believe he’s not going to be charged.”

Jansen issued a separate statement to Birkett: “We have not yet been provided with the text messages in question, and it would be inappropriate to comment on isolated excerpts without first reviewing them in their full context. We are aware that law enforcement has conducted an extensive investigation, as reflected in the 49-page criminal information. Notably, our client has not been charged, and based on the evidence currently known, we do not anticipate that any charges will be brought against him. Any suggestion of involvement appears to rest solely on the fact that our client is acquainted with certain individuals connected to this matter. Mere association does not constitute participation in criminal activity. Importantly, there is no evidence, nor any witness testimony, indicating that our client has had any involvement.”

The fact that Arnold hasn’t been charged doesn’t mean he won’t be. Prosecutors may attempt to persuade one or more of the existing defendants to flip on Arnold, if there’s any reason to believe he ordered or instigated the effort to recover the property that had been stolen from the property he had rented.

Veteran defensive lineman D.J. Reader could find a job in Baltimore.

The NFL’s transaction report for Thursday shows that Reader visited with the Ravens. It’s the first reported visit of the month for Reader, who was No. 40 on PFT’s list of this year’s top free agents.

Reader started every game for the Lions last season and finished the year with 28 tackles. He also played 15 games for the Lions in 2024 and previously appeared in 105 games for the Bengals and Texans.

Reader has 328 tackles, 12.5 sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery over all of those stops.

The Ravens saw Dre’Mont Jones sign with the Patriots after free agency opened this month. Brent Urban and Taven Bryan remain free agents after playing for the team last season.

There was a moment this offseason when it looked like the Lions would have both of their starting offensive tackles back for the 2026 season, but that possibility crumbled when they couldn’t agree to a revised contract with left tackle Taylor Decker prior to his release.

Decker had taken some time to consider retirement and one of the scenarios discussed before he announced plans to play was to move Penei Sewell from right tackle to left tackle. It’s back on the table now and General Manager Brad Holmes said the option of switching Sewell’s spot made it easier to approach free agency this month.

“I think that’s the beauty of having a player like him,” Holmes said on the Lions Collective podcast. “You always have that flexibility of the possibility of him playing left tackle, He’s done it before. It’s not anything foreign to him, so, even as we’re going through free agency, we weren’t really pigeonholed like, ‘We’ve got to get a left tackle. We’ve got to get a right tackle.’ We were just like, ‘What’s the best tackle for us?’ And then we’ll kind of adjust as needed. So that’s kind of the beauty of it.”

The Lions wound up signing Larry Borom, who started 11 games at right tackle for the Dolphins last season. Borom has played other spots over the course of his career, but Holmes said he thought the veteran’s “most consistent ball” came at that position last year and that would seem to be a sign of where things are heading on the offensive line in Detroit.

Not that there was much question, but the Lions have officially brought back their kicker.

Detroit announced on Wednesday that the club has re-signed Jake Bates.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Bates, 27, had been tendered as an exclusive rights free agent, virtually guaranteeing he would be back with the club.

Bates has led the league in extra points attempted and made over his first two seasons with Detroit. He connected on 26-of-29 field goals in 2024 and 27-of-34 field goals in 2025.