The Lions are no longer projected to get a compensatory pick for D.J. Reed, but they are for another player

It’s not a fourth rounder, but it will help the Lions.

Mike Payton — Detroit Lions Beat Writer

Dec 31, 2025 10:52 AM EST

We’ve been tracking the potential compensatory fourth-round pick the Detroit Lions could get for D.J. Reed for a couple of months now.

Just to recap, because Carlton Davis left the Lions when his contract ended, he is a compensatory free agent. Reed is also a CFA. When a CFA replaces a CFA, it usually cancels out a compensatory pick. But if the replacing CFA doesn’t play a certain number of snaps, the formula views that as a loss for the Lions. They lost a healthy player and got an injured one.

When Reed got injured in Week 4, the watch was on. At that time, Over The Cap’s compensatory pick expert, Nick Korte, explained that Reed was at 48% of the required snaps, and the Lions were just missing the pick. If he went below that, they could potentially get it. 

Then Reed missed almost the entire month of November. Last week, Reed surpassed that 48% threshold and has now played 52.4% of snaps for the Lions this year. Nothing is set in stone, but that probably cancels out pick. But there is another.

Lions now projected to get a compensatory fifth-round pick for the loss of Kevin Zeitler

Over The Cap’s formula now has Zeitler in place there. The Lions did not sign any other CFA in his place. If you’ve been following the formula all season, you’ll notice that a pick for Zeitler wasn’t there until this week. A lot of that has to do with Zeitler finishing out the season healthy with a full snap count. The formula now considers him a total loss for the Lions.

Again, nothing is set in stone until the NFL gives them the pick or doesn’t in March. We’ll update you as soon as we have confirmation.

Detroit Lions News

The Browns just made the Lions’ final game a little more interesting by poaching one of their starters away

That ends that experiment for the Lions.

Mike Payton