After experiencing a few days of free agency, "that sh*t sucks," said Levi Onwuzurike. "Sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting." He ended the wait by trusting his gut and returning to the Lions on a one-year $5.5 million deal.
"This was kind of like, 'Alright, do I really need to keep looking or do I just go who I've already built a relationship with?'" Onwuzurike said Thursday.
Onwuzurike arrived in the same draft class as Derrick Barnes, who re-signed with the Lions last week, and Penei Sewell, Alim McNeill and Amon-Ra St. Brown, who were extended last year. He's grown tight with Aidan Hutchinson. And considering "the trust the coaches have in me and how much they've invested in me," it only made sense for the 27-year-old defensive lineman to stay with the only team he's ever known.
"Once it came down to it and I decided that I want to be here, then it starts flushing in: Alright, Derrick's going to be here. Hutch is here. Alim is here. All these guys you grew up with and played with are here," Onwuzurike said. "You don't have to move or if you do move, you're moving five miles down the road. You know the defense. You know all the coaches. You're familiar. It's going to be the same drive.
"All that starts flooding into your head. It just makes it so much smoother, because you're familiar."
Onwuzurike is coming off his best season in Detroit. Why leave now? After being hindered by injuries the first three years of his career, he finally had a clean bill of health entering year four. A body -- notably a back -- that would cooperate with his mind's demands. And he turned in his best pass-rushing numbers to date.
In 16 games, Onwuzurike put up 45 quarterback pressures, per Pro Football Focus, tied for 15th in the NFL among interior defenders with McNeill and Pro Bowler Jeffery Simmons. And he tied for 10th among interior defenders in pass rush win rate (12.5 percent) with Pro Bowlers Dexter Lawrence and Vita Vea, albeit while getting more snaps off the edge than the others.
The difference is in the all-important sack column. Where Lawrence had nine, Vea seven, Simmons five and McNeill 3.5 (in 14 games), Onwuzurike had just 1.5, and none in his final 13 games, playoffs included. That placed him outside the top 60 interior defenders, and still marked a career high.
"I think now is the time to start really looking at sacks. Getting them," he said. "I had a lot of pressures, that means I should have a lot of sacks. I've just got to put it all together."
Asked how he translates one into the other, "It's really just about making the play once you get there," said Onwuzurike.
"At the end of the day, for some guys it's a little bit of luck. But really just gotta make the play and have the right guys around you. If you put Hutch to my left, Mac to my right, and have DJ Reader with us, Marcus Davenport, one of us is going to get a sack," he said. "It's going to happen. It's bound to happen."
What isn't going to happen -- what can't possibly happen -- is the sort of defensive attrition that the Lions suffered last year. In the front seven alone, they lost Hutchinson, Davenport, Barnes and McNeill for the season and Alex Anzalone for several weeks. Getting everyone back on the field at the same time lifts the ceiling for each individual player, and for the defense at large.
For Onwuzurike, that should mean more opportunities to get home.
"What happened last year was crazy," he said. "We can all admit that, and it's not going to happen again. That's one of those rare things that happened. You saw how we were rolling at the beginning of the year, so to have all those guys back, everybody side by side, we're going to cause some damage for sure."