The Lions’ decision to let Alex Anzalone leave in free agency is starting to look pretty sharp, and it hasn’t taken long for the evidence to pile up.
Detroit’s linebacker room was always going to be under the microscope after Anzalone landed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That left Derrick Barnes with a bigger spotlight, especially after a 2025 season in which he appeared in 17 games but still felt like more of a peripheral piece than a centerpiece, even with four sacks, an interception and eight stuffs. Barnes needed to take a real step forward this year to make Detroit’s choice feel justified.
He’s already helped. Barnes had a two-sack game against the New Orleans Saints in Week 1, which was enough to ease some of the pressure on Detroit’s decision. But the bigger reason the Lions are looking smart right now has come from the other side of the move.
Anzalone has struggled badly to open the year, with missed tackles and a 29.1 PFF grade that ranks last among linebackers. That kind of start is exactly the sort of thing Detroit wanted to avoid tying itself to as the defense gets younger around him.
Tampa Bay, though, doesn’t sound ready to make a drastic move. Anzalone is a captain for the Buccaneers, which makes a benching feel unlikely, and head coach Todd Bowles still sounds confident in him:
“Well, he wasn’t the only one that missed tackles. I mean, we had a few guys miss tackles in the second half that led to some plays.
We’ve just got to tackle better. … [I am] still confident in him.
Like I said, we’ve got a lot of guys that [have] got a lot of things to clean up. If you put somebody on the bench for messing up, then everybody is on the bench.”
That’s a very different picture from the one Anzalone left behind in Detroit. In his final season with the Lions, he didn’t have the tackling issues that have popped up in Tampa Bay. Per Lions writer DB Keener, he posted a career-high 6.9 percent missed tackle rate and finished with his third-best PFF grade.
Still, the Lions had reasons to move on. Anzalone is 32, and Detroit has clearly shifted toward a younger defense. Jack Campbell was already a major investment, which made the decision to move away from Anzalone in free agency even easier to justify.
The Lions probably couldn’t have predicted a falloff this severe so early in the season. But between Barnes’ Week 1 flash and Anzalone’s rough start in Tampa Bay, Detroit’s call is looking more and more like the right one. Campbell still needs to clean things up through two games, but the broader picture is hard to ignore: the Lions are looking smarter by the week.
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