20man: It’s a good question because last year around this time James Houston entered the scene on defense and made such a big impact down the stretch. The Lions could use a similar performance the final eight games of the season.
I think one name that comes to mind for me is second-year defensive lineman Josh Paschal. He played 54 percent of the snaps in Los Angeles last week and didn’t record a stat. He’s yet to record a sack this season. He dealt with injury at the beginning of the year but he’s past that now and needs to be one of those players who steps up and makes more splash plays the second half of the season
Aidan Hutchinson leads the team with 4.5 sacks and right now Julian Okwara is the only other primary edge rusher with more than a single sack. He has two.
Irvin had a workout Tuesday and head coach Dan Campbell said Irvin showed off a quick first step, power and the ability to bend, even at 36 years old. He’s certainly not the player he once was but he still had 3.5 sacks last year playing about 54 percent of the snaps in 11 games for Seattle. He brings some veteran experience to the room with 55.5 career sacks. He’s currently on the practice squad so there’s no harm in bringing him in and seeing if he can still give them something as a situational pass rusher.
Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn said they will build some packages for him once he gets to get back into football shape.
Tim Twentyman will answer 10 good questions from his Twitter account @ttwentyman every week during the regular season in a feature we call “10 Questions with Twentyman.”
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