Mobile, Ala. — There’s a high probability the Detroit Lions add an edge rusher or two this offseason, but the team’s outside linebacker coach, Kelvin Sheppard, has lofty expectations for one of the players he knows will be back in 2022: Julian Okwara.
Drafted in the third round two years ago, Okwara battled injuries and barely saw the field as a rookie, logging fewer than 70 defensive snaps. And despite seeing a bigger workload than that during Detroit’s three-game preseason slate, he was inactive for the season opener, and didn’t see more than a dozen snaps until his older brother, Romeo, went down with an Achilles injury in Week 4.