{"id":824851,"date":"2026-03-21T09:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/824851\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T09:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:06:10","slug":"detroit-lions-sign-new-edge-former-1st-round-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/824851\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Lions sign new EDGE, former 1st-round pick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">The Detroit Lions announced on Friday afternoon that they have signed free agent edge defender Payton Turner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Turner was the New Orleans Saints\u2019 first-round pick in 2021, selected 28th overall after a four-year college career at Houston. Obviously, things didn\u2019t go as planned for Turner, who only played 31 games for the Saints over four years, and never starting a single contest for New Orleans.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Injuries were largely to blame for Turner\u2019s lack of progression. He finished his rookie season on IR with a shoulder injury, and missed nearly the entire 2023 season with a turf toe injury. He also missed the entire 2025 season\u2014as a Dallas Cowboy\u2014with a rib injury suffered prior to the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Injuries aside, Turner has still had a disappointing start to his career. In his final season with the Saints, he managed to play 16 games for New Orleans, but managed just 21 tackles, 2.0 sacks, four passes defended, and two forced fumbles. PFF graded him with a career-worst 54.0 mark that year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">That said, it\u2019s easy to see why the Lions are interested. For one, he\u2019ll come cheap. Last year, he signed one-year, $2.5 million contract and given his high injury risk, he\u2019ll likely be even cheaper for Detroit this year. Secondly, he fits what the Lions like stylicially in their big defensive end. Turner is listed at 6-foot-6, 270 pounds, and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MathBomb\/status\/1890535240038220088\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:he comes with plenty of athleticism;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;he comes with plenty of athleticism&quot;}\" class=\"link \">he comes with plenty of athleticism<\/a>. Finally, he fits their current trend of a young players with a chip on their shoulder. Turner just turned 27 earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In short, he\u2019s a younger Marcus Davenport.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He\u2019ll join recently-signed DJ Wonnum to compete for a spot in the Lions\u2019 overhauled defensive end room. The Lions have lost Al-Quadin Muhammad and Tyrus Wheat in free agency, while Davenport and Pat O\u2019Connor remain unsigned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">We\u2019ll see if the Lions continue to add competition to the defensive end room or if they\u2019ll wait until April\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prideofdetroit.com\/post\/fg1-4jeQGGFQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Shout out to reader Grimy0185, who called this signing five days ago;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Shout out to reader Grimy0185, who called this signing five days ago&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Shout out to reader Grimy0185, who called this signing five days ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions announced on Friday afternoon that they have signed free agent edge defender Payton Turner. Turner&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[24909,15589,258,146,113,2506,7,221,4238,147,6017,896,55,6,9162,4378,9170],"class_list":["post-824851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-lions","tag-al-quadin-muhammad","tag-dallas-cowboy","tag-denver-broncos","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-lions","tag-detroitlions","tag-football","tag-houston","tag-la","tag-lions","tag-marcus-davenport","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-nfl","tag-payton-turner","tag-the-lions","tag-tyrus-wheat"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116266374809314658","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}