D.J. Wonnum has turned a quiet addition into a real problem for opposing offenses, and now the Detroit Lions edge rusher has a sudden revenge-game wrinkle when the Minnesota Vikings come to town in Week 8.
The Lions have spent years trying to find another pass rusher to line up next to Aidan Hutchinson, and last offseason that search brought them to Wonnum, the former Vikings defensive end who spent his first four seasons in Minnesota after going in the fourth round of the 2020 draft.
Wonnum’s time with the Vikings included a 2023 season that matched his career high with eight sacks and set a personal best with 62 total tackles. That production helped him reach free agency, and after two seasons with the Carolina Panthers in 2024 and 2025, he landed in Detroit.
So far, the fit has worked. Through six games, Wonnum is tied for the team lead with five sacks. His Week 7 performance against the Green Bay Packers was even more memorable for a different reason: he blocked a field goal that helped set up the game-winning drive in the fourth quarter, a play that helped earn him NFC Special Teams Player of the Week.
Even if the timing is a little funny, the sacks have come in bunches. Wonnum collected all five of them over the three games before Week 7, and he has consistently brought pressure off the edge. For a Lions team that has often had to scrape together help at that spot behind Hutchinson, his arrival already looks like a smart 2026 free-agent move.
That matters even more against Minnesota. Hutchinson has been excellent again, but having another healthy edge threat changes how a defense can function, and it gives the Vikings one more name they have to account for.
There’s also the added twist that Wonnum’s old team moved on from him. In Brian Flores’ first season as Minnesota’s defensive coordinator in 2023, Wonnum put up that eight-sack year. But the Vikings went a different direction in the offseason, bringing in Andrew Van Ginkel and Jonathan Greenard and later drafting Dallas Turner in the first round that April.
The results have worked out for Minnesota. The Vikings were happy with what they got from Van Ginkel and Turner, and Greenard produced a Pro Bowl season in 2024 before being banged up last season and then being traded to the Philadelphia Eagles last offseason.
There simply wasn’t room for Wonnum in Minnesota’s 2024 offseason plans, and Carolina gave him the multi-year deal that sent him elsewhere.
Now T.J. Hockenson is in line for a revenge game against the team that drafted him. Wonnum, in a twist few probably saw coming, may have one too.
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