The Lions have shifted their offensive line around this offseason, releasing LT Taylor Decker and signing Dolphins OT Larry Borom from the Dolphins.
Decker started 140 games at left tackle in his 10 years in Detroit, while Borom made 11 starts last season at right tackle. Naturally, there have been some rumors that the Lions could move RT Penei Sewell over to LT after five seasons to replace Decker and slot Borom in on the right side.
Detroit GM Brad Holmes touched on the topic and revealed he’s open to moving the All-Pro to QB Jared Goff‘s blindside. Because of Sewell’s experience at LT in college, Holmes never felt like they absolutely had to get someone who could play on the left side and could instead focus on maximizing value.
“I think that’s the beauty of having a player like him, you always have that flexibility of the possibility of him playing left tackle,” Holmes said, via the Lions Collective podcast. “He’s done it before. It’s not anything foreign to him. So even as we’re going through free agency, we weren’t really pigeonholed like, ‘We’ve got to get a left tackle. We’ve got to get a right tackle.’ We were just like, ‘What’s the best tackle for us?’ And then we’ll kind of adjust as needed. So that’s kind of the beauty of it.”
Holmes admitted Borom’s consistent 2025 season at right tackle is certainly a factor when deciding where to play Sewell going forward.
“Seeing what (Borom) did at Miami, especially at right tackle, and then you start looking at the film, and it’s like, ‘Man, this is probably about the most consistent ball that I’ve seen him play.’ Then, you start taking a deeper dive of him at right tackle, even in the past, and you start seeing this level of consistency versus the guard spots or the left tackle spots. Not saying that he can’t play those spots, too, because he can, but that’s what kept him up there for us.”
Finally, Holmes didn’t entirely rule out a reunion with Decker, but he said the two sides have not had any recent dialogue.
Sewell, 25, was drafted by the Lions with the No. 7 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. He was entering the final year of a four-year, $24,099,068 rookie contract that included a fifth-year option to pick up on him in 2024.
The Lions then signed him to a four-year, $112 million extension to make him the highest-paid offensive lineman in the NFL. The deal included $85 million in guaranteed money.
In 2025, Sewell appeared in 16 games for the Lions and started each time at offensive tackle.
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