Speculation surrounding Nick Fairley's future in Detroit has been high ever since the Lions opted not to pick up his fifth-year option. Claimed to be for motivational purposes, the tactic has yet to work on the defensive tackle. In the Lions' second preseason game, Fairley worked solely with the second-team defense, leaving many to wonder if he was no longer a starter after looking unimpressive in practice so far. Head coach Jim Caldwell confirmed the depth chart change.
"If you're asking me whether or not Fairley is going to be a starter, he's not starting right now," Caldwell said, via ESPN.com. "He's second team. But the rest of it, we'll look. It's a long week. We've got a lot of work to do in between and typically like most games, we'll take a look at where we are and make an assessment on that toward the end of the week."
Fairley was drafted in the first round back in 2011. Detroit had plans for he and Ndamukong Suh to make the best defensive tandem in the league and while that has worked out some years, it has failed in others. Meanwhile, Ezekial Ansah and CJ Mosley have been making the most of their training camp and impressing enough to get pumped up to starters. Caldwell downplayed the stats that Fairley played the fewest amount of snaps than any other defensive lay on the team, noting that he was waiting on improvements from the tackle.
General manager Martin Mayhew told media during the offseason that Detroit was hoping Fairley would enter 2014 more motivated in order to get a nice pay raise in his next contract. Things appeared to be going well when the defensive tackle showed up to spring workouts under 300 pounds. However, he returned to training camp at 305 and has taken several steps backwards since then.
The decline of Fairley comes at a bad time for Detroit. The Lions are in contract disputes with Suh which make his future with the team uncertain. Suh intends on being the highest-paid defensive player in the league and Detroit is not ready to make that commitment. He has the opportunity to become a free agent and walk away giving Detroit nothing in return. According to the Detroit Free Press, the team might opt to trade either Fairley or Suh at the mid-season deadline if it appears one or both will be leaving at the end of the season.
