{"id":846624,"date":"2026-04-01T07:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T07:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/846624\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T07:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T07:56:15","slug":"detroit-signs-veteran-safety-with-extensive-afc-north-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/846624\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit signs veteran safety with extensive AFC North experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Detroit Lions<\/a> debate the Frank Ragnow salary bonus situation<\/a> and speculate on what position All-Pro offensive lineman Penei Sewell will play, the team still has one big issue to address. Following a puzzling couple weeks of free agency, the defense remains a fairly big concern. Sixth-year general manager Brad Holmes is under significant pressure to decidedly upgrade the unit before offseason’s end. He added some experience to the secondary<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Lions signed veteran safety Chuck Clark, per the team’s X account. He spent the first six seasons of his career with the Baltimore Ravens and played for the Pittsburgh Steelers during the 2025-26 campaign. Those franchises typically embody the defensive physicality and toughness that is currently missing in Detroit, so perhaps this acquisition has ample value to offer.<\/p>\n

There are other position groups that appear more pressing than safety \u2014 could use another effective edge rusher to help out game-wrecker Aidan Hutchinson \u2014 but injury concerns make this a potentially savvy move. Kerby Joseph battled a knee injury for most of last season and Brian Branch suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon<\/a> in December. Even if they are both good to go by opening kickoff, the Lions could use some insurance.<\/p>\n

Chuck Clark recorded three pass breakups, one forced fumble, 51 combined tackles, two tackles for loss and 12 stops for the Steelers in 15 games last season. The 30-year-old can still make meaningful contributions on the field and gives Detroit valuable depth.<\/p>\n

Brad Holmes has much more to do before he can ease fans’ qualms about a defense that gave up 24.3 points per game in 2025-26 (ranked 22nd in NFL). But this is a start.<\/p>\n

While Detroit Lions debate the Frank Ragnow salary bonus situation and speculate on what position All-Pro offensive lineman Penei Sewell will play, the team still has one big issue to address. Following a puzzling couple weeks of free agency, the defense remains a fairly big concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Detroit Lions debate the Frank Ragnow salary bonus situation and speculate on what position All-Pro offensive lineman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,2506,7,147,6,2592],"class_list":{"0":"post-846624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroitlions","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-lions","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-nfl-free-agency"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116328384914294686","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846624","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=846624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}