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Lions Acquire Star Pass Rusher Za’Darius Smith From Browns in Big Deadline Trade
The Detroit Lions are acquiring Za’Darius Smith from the Cleveland Browns in a huge move at the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday, per multiple reports.
The Browns traded Smith and a 2026 seventh-round pick to the Lions in exchange for a 2025 fifth-round pick and a 2026 sixth-round pick.
Smith, 32, is expected to boost the Lions’ pass-rushing corps after Aidan Hutchinson suffered a season-ending injury on Oct. 13. He has five sacks in nine games this season for Cleveland.
The Lions will be Smith’s fourth team in the last four years and his third NFC North team in that span, as the Pro Bowl defensive end has previously played for the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings. His most fruitful seasons in the league arguably came in a Packers jersey, as Smith racked up 26 sacks across two full seasons in Green Bay in 2019 and '20.
Several years removed from his double-digit sack campaigns, Smith was one of the top rumored high-profile candidates ahead of the NFL trade deadline and a widely-predicted acquisition for Detroit. The Lions, boasting one of their most complete rosters in recent history, get an extra dose of pass-rushing help in Smith midseason as they prepare for a hopeful Super Bowl run.
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Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.