Za’Darius Smith, a Greenville High School alumnus, is making a major move in the NFL—trading a team with the worst record in the AFC for one with the top record in the NFC.
The Detroit Lions have acquired the veteran defensive end from the Cleveland Browns, according to reports from Cleveland.com, NFL Network, and ESPN on Tuesday, ahead of the official announcement from either team. The trade comes just before the NFL’s 3 p.m. CST deadline.
Detroit’s defense has been impacted by the loss of their star pass rusher, Aidan Hutchinson, who broke his leg during the Lions’ 47-9 win over the Dallas Cowboys on October 13. While Detroit has registered five sacks in the three games since Hutchinson’s injury, they failed to get any sacks in their recent 24-14 win over the Green Bay Packers.
Smith, who has logged five sacks this season, brings a career total of 65 sacks to the Lions. In exchange for Smith and a seventh-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Lions sent a fifth-round pick in 2025 and a sixth-round pick in 2026 to the Browns.
This marks the second trade of Smith’s career. Back in May 2023, the Browns acquired him along with two future draft picks from the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for fifth-round picks in 2024 and 2025.
A former basketball player at Greenville High School, Smith shifted to football for his senior year and eventually earned a spot at East Mississippi Community College. He completed his college career at Kentucky before being drafted by Baltimore in the fourth round of the 2015 NFL Draft. Smith played four seasons with the Ravens before joining the Green Bay Packers on a four-year, $66 million contract.
Smith earned Pro Bowl honors in 2019 and 2020 as an outside linebacker with the Packers, accumulating 26 sacks, 29 tackles for loss, and 60 quarterback hits. However, in the first game of the 2021 season, Smith aggravated a back injury that required surgery, sidelining him until the playoffs, where he made an impact with a sack in Green Bay’s NFC loss to San Francisco.
Released by the Packers in 2022 with one year left on his contract, Smith quickly signed a three-year, $42 million deal with the Vikings. He returned to Pro Bowl form in 2022, posting 10 sacks. After joining the Browns, Smith’s contract was restructured, earning him $11.75 million for the 2023 season with the opportunity to become a free agent afterward. However, he signed a two-year, $23.5 million contract extension with Cleveland in March.
