Twelve days after he was acquired in a trade with the Cleveland Browns, edge rusher Za’Darius Smith finally made his Detroit Lions debut.
The veteran tallied a team-high three pressures, a sack and a stop on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars in his first game in Honolulu blue, per Pro Football Focus. That all came in 37 snaps, a pretty decent workload, considering Lions head coach Dan Campbell said Smith could be on a pitch count early on with Detroit and the fact that Sunday’s game got out of hand early.
On Monday, Campbell was asked what he thought of Smith’s debut and said he liked what he saw.
“Yeah, I thought he did some good things for us, it was good to have him out there. Really, like we talked about last week, just be a piece of this puzzle,” Campbell said.
The coach noted that Smith, 32, can do a lot of different things and just adds another element to Detroit’s defense.
“He’s a guy that’s played, he is instinctive, he doesn’t stay blocked long, he’s really good with his hands, like I said, he’s can set an edge in the run game, he’s really good at working games with (Alim McNeill) and (D.J. Reader) and those guys, he’s just got a knack for those things. So I think, first outing with him, man, I thought it was good. I think he fits right in with us.”
Smith and the Lions will head to Indianapolis to play the Colts this weekend.
