



The Detroit Lions continue to add to their secondary throughout the offseason. After the conclusion of the 2024 season, the team has added three new defensive backs to the roster.
Veteran cornerback Avonte Maddox is joining Detroit for the 2025 NFL season. The 28-year-old started his career with the Philadelphia Eagles after being drafted in the fourth-round of the 2018 NFL Draft.
On social media, his significant other shared the signing with her followers on Instagram.
“I told Avonte at the beginning of last season that I knew he’d end up at the Lions next season. He looked at me like I was crazy because out of all of the teams in the NFL how could I be so sure,” Maddox’s significant other Iman Williams posted. “Honestly I was sure because I knew it would be best for us and when I say something’s going to happen and I believe it fully, 9x out 10 it happens. Yes I have super powers.”
The talented defensive back played collegiately at Pittsburgh after starring at Detroit Martin Luther King High School.
In his seven-year NFL career, Maddox has appeared in 81 games and recorded four interceptions, 270 tackles, 13 tackles for loss and eight forced fumbles.
His 2023 season was derailed when he suffered a torn pectoral muscle in Week 2, but was able to return in late December.
Detroit’s newest defensive back has ties to the City of Detroit.
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According to the Eagles team website, “His journey started on Detroit’s East Side, where his father, Michael, raised him as a single parent living in Avonte’s grandmother’s house … By the time he entered middle school, his father was able to afford a place of his own for them to live in … Moved out of his father’s house to stay with his aunt and uncle when he started high school … His father, aunt and uncle all worked in Detroit’s automobile industry.”
This week, Detroit has signed defensive backs Khalil Dorsey and Rock Ya-Sin. Also, the team signed D.J. Reed to a free-agent agreement after Carlton Davis departed for the New England Patriots.
Lions signing former 49ers cornerback Rock Ya-Sin
The Detroit Lions have agreed to contract terms with a former second-round NFL draft pick.
According to multiple reports, the Lions and cornerback Rock Ya-Sin have reached terms for the former Colts and 49ers defensive back to join the roster for the upcoming 2025 NFL season.
Ya-Sin, 28, was originally selected by the Indianapolis Colts in the second round (34th pick) of the 2019 NFL Draft.
Throughout his six-year career, he has had stints with the Colts (2019-21), Raiders (2022), Ravens (2023) and 49ers (2024).
The 5-foot-11, 195-pound defensive back has appeared in 79 games and recorded 199 combined tackles, 166 solo tackles, 31 passes defended, two interceptions and two forced fumbles.
Ya-Sin attended Presbyterian College from 2015-17 prior to transferring to Temple University for the 2018 season.
At Temple, he appeared in 12 games and recorded 47 tackles, two interceptions and 14 passes defensed.
Lions re-sign CB Khalil Dorsey
The Detroit Lions have made a decision on free agent cornerback Khalil Dorsey.
After a solid 2024 season, the talented defensive back and special teams ace is returning for another season in 2025.
Dorsey, 26, suffered a gruesome leg injury against the Buffalo Bills, abruptly ending his third season in Motown.
He knew immediately he was injured badly, after feeling intense pain following being clipped by teammate Ezekiel Turner on a passing route on third-and-goal.
“Yeah, I mean, obviously crushed for him. I mean, this guy’s an incredible player for us, obviously. Just watching the film this morning, even a rep of him on punt return holding up one of their gunners, did a great job for us,” special teams coordinator Dave Fipp explained after Dorsey’s season ended prematurely. “But he was a great player for us all year long, obviously.”
Dorsey told Lions OnSI during locker clean out he needed to be calmed down after being placed in an ambulance following suffering a broken fibula and tibia in his right leg. Naturally, he thought about his future and if he had played his last down for the Lions.
He indicated he was given approximately a recovery period of four to six months.
Detroit’s coaching staff regularly noticed the disruption the talented defender brought to the opposition as a special teams gunner.
Dan Campbell noted, “Dorsey I think is, if not the best, one of the best gunners in this league.”
In 27 appearances for the Lions, the former Ravens and Giants defender has recorded three passes defensed and 25 tackles.