Lions Trade George Johnson, Seventh-Round Pick To Bucs For Fifth-Round Pick
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
CBS DETROIT - The Detroit Lions have traded defensive end George Johnson to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Lions confirmed Wednesday afternoon via their team website.
Detroit sent Johnson and a seventh-round pick to the Buccaneers and received a fifth-round pick in return, per the website.
Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times first reported the news of the trade Wednesday morning.
The Buccaneers had extended an offer sheet to Johnson, a restricted free agent. Johnson signed it, and the Lions had until Monday to match, but instead they contested the offer sheet. An independent arbitrator would have had to rule within 10 days on which principal terms of the contract the Lions needed to match, and then Detroit would have had two days to decide whether to do so.
With the trade, arbitration was avoided. Tampa Bay got the player it clearly wanted, and Detroit got a draft pick out of his departure, something the Lions would not have received had they simply declined to match the offer Tampa Bay made to Johnson.
Johnson tweeted about the situation Wednesday.
Johnson, whom the Buccaneers signed as an undrafted free agent when he entered the league in 2010, had a career season in 2014, recording six sacks.
