The Lions passed on drafting Tua Tagovailoa or Justin Herbert in 2020 and instead selected cornerback Jeff Okudah with the third overall choice. Okudah has played 10 games in two seasons, with groin surgery ending his rookie season before a ruptured Achilles limited him to only 48 plays in 2021.
The Lions plan to keep Okudah at cornerback when he returns from his injury this summer, still believing Okudah can become a standout at the position.
“Right now, we see him as corner, but there again, a lot of this will be as we continue to discuss and depending on who we add or how we add, you never know,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “We’re constantly talking about our personnel and what’s best for them moving forward. What’s best for us.
“Should this guy go to safety? Should this guy go to nickel? Should we bump this guy back out to corner? How are our injured guys? What do we add? So we just constantly are going to have dialogue about that, but yeah, we see Jeff out there and what we need to do is just continue to add pieces that can compete.”
Okudah posted a video on social media Monday showing him doing on-field workouts, including backpedaling. The minute-long video was captioned, “169 days. February was special! God is great.”
Campbell said Okudah and defensive end Romeo Okwara, also recovering from a ruptured Achilles, should return to participate in at least part of training camp.
“Both of those guys we feel like right now are right where they need to be, is probably the best way to describe that,” Campbell said. “And as long as everything stays the course with their recovery then we should have them hopefully by training camp, at least on a limited basis, which would be good. So we’re hoping for the season on both of those guys if they’re ready.”