Why Ahmed Hassanein Gives The Lions A HUGE Advantage In 2025...

Mike Payton talks about Detroit Lions 6th round pick Ahmed Hassanein, and the big advantage that he gives to the Lions for 2025.

Transcript

00:00Sixth round pick Ahmed Hassanin just got the Lions a big unexpected perk from the NFL. Let's talk

00:06about it. Hi, I'm Mike Payne from A to Z Sports Detroit and today we're going to talk about how

00:09Ahmed Hassanin, the Lions sixth round pick, got the NFL to give the Lions a big unexpected perk.

00:17First off, Ahmed Hassanin, great player, moved to Egypt at the age of six, lived there for most of

00:25his life, came back to America in 2019, didn't speak English, didn't know how to play football,

00:31didn't really even know what football was, wound up playing in high school, being pretty good there,

00:38got to Boise State, got even better there. Now he's with the Lions as a sixth round pick.

00:42He's expected to do some big things either this year and in the future. We'll see where that goes,

00:49but he brings to the Lions a really big perk that I don't think anybody expected he would get and

00:55that is an international exemption. Now the international exemption means a few things.

01:00First off, it means that the Lions get a 91st roster spot. That's huge. Every team has to have

01:0890 players right now. So if you get that 91st, you essentially just opened up a brand new roster

01:13spot for the Lions just because now they went from 90 to 91. It also means, and this isn't anything that

01:20I think is going to happen, but it means if for any reason the Lions do not have Hassanin on their 53

01:27men roster going into the 2025 season, they can store him on the practice squad with a 17th practice

01:34squad spot that you get from that same exemption. So that's huge. That's a big deal. Now there's some

01:40confusion as to why Hassanin gets this for the Lions. He's not an international pathways player,

01:46which is traditionally the player that brings the exemption to teams. What he does have is,

01:55and if you read in the bylaws and the subsections, he has just two years of American high school

02:00football under his belt. There's a little confusion because his third year was during COVID-19 pandemic,

02:08and because of that, it kind of stripped away. He only played a couple games that year,

02:14so I think the NFL only looks at it as he has just two years. Now because of that, he gets

02:19the exemption, and a couple other players from other teams have also started to get some of these

02:24exemptions too. So it's a huge bonus for the Lions, and it also is big for international players too

02:31because this will inspire teams to pick more international players because it's not just about

02:38that international pathways group anymore. Now there's some extra players who are maybe spent

02:44most of their life, have dual citizenship outside of the U.S. or Canada, and are now coming into the

02:50NFL after just a couple years. There's different ways in which the NFL is basically telling you,

02:56hey, we want to diversify this league, and we're going to give you some perks out of it.

03:02So this is big for the Lions, big for the NFL, and we'll see where things go. Obviously, 91st roster

03:07spot, that's huge. That means the Lions get to sign some extra guys and have some more fluidity in the

03:13roster during training camp. We'll see what they wind up doing with that extra spot, but this is a big

03:19perk, huge for the Lions. Let me know what you guys think in the comments below, and we will see you next time.