Dan Campbell: The trade has been the best thing for Jeff Okuda and us

The Lions traded cornerback Jeff Okuda to the Falcons in the fifth round this week, and coach Dan Campbell cited the rest of the team’s offseason movement as a big reason to move them the third overall pick of the 2020 draft.

while appearing on The Rich Eisen ShowCampbell said the team is “thrilled with the upgrades we’ve had” in the secondary over the past month. They signed cornerbacks Cam Sutton and Emmanuel Mosley as well as added safety CJ Gardner-Johnson to complete a set of moves that pushed Okudah down the Detroit depth chart.

“We really felt, at the time, that this was probably the case The best thing for us And for Jeff, Okuda said. “A new change of scenery and giving him a fresh start. We really felt good about our guys. And look, man, I appreciate Jeff. He was a professional, he came to work, got his ass straight. He worked it out. He was coming off an injury last year and we just felt like, “You know, this is the right thing to do now.”

Neither Campbell nor general manager Brad Holmes was in Detroit when Okuda was drafted and his departure is the team’s latest move to turn the page from the past into what they hope will be a brighter future.

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