The Detroit Lions have announced they added defensive lineman Jeffrey M’Ba to their practice squad on Thursday, giving the 27-year-old another chance to stay in the league a day after Washington cut him loose.
M’Ba’s path to Detroit has been short and unsettled. The 6-foot-6, 312-pound behemoth entered the league as an undrafted free agent with the Commanders out of SMU after the 2026 NFL Draft, then failed to survive Washington’s final roster trim coming out of the preseason.
The Commanders brought him back to the practice squad, only to release him on Wednesday.
Detroit moved quickly, announcing the signing the next day and slotting him onto a practice squad that already includes defensive linemen Chris Smith and Ben Stille.
The move is the kind of low-cost depth addition teams make once the regular season is underway and injuries start to thin the front.
A practice-squad deal does not guarantee a game-day role, but it keeps M’Ba in the building, available for elevation if Detroit needs an extra body up front.
For a player who has already been cut twice in his first professional autumn, the signing is less a reward than a reset.
M’Ba’s college résumé is more substantial than his brief NFL résumé. He played at Auburn, Purdue, and SMU, appearing in 45 games and finishing with 94 tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss, seven sacks, and a forced fumble.
That production never translated into a draft pick, which is common for interior and edge prospects who bounce between programs and never lock in as a full-time starter.
The multi-school route can also make a prospect harder to project: coaches see the tape from different schemes, and the sample is rarely clean.
Washington’s decision to release him from the practice squad so early in the season suggests he had not separated himself in meetings or on the practice field. Detroit is betting there is still something to evaluate.
Practice-squad signings of this type are often about traits as much as production — length, effort against the run, or the ability to occupy a blocker — and those traits do not always show up in a box score from college.
For the Lions, the cost is minimal. M’Ba can be released as easily as he was signed, and the roster math on the practice squad is flexible enough to absorb a one-day addition. For M’Ba, the stakes are higher.
He is already 27, older than most undrafted rookies, and he has cycled through two organizations before playing a regular-season snap. Staying on a practice squad keeps him paid and in front of coaches. Failing to stick would send him back to the open market with even less leverage.
Thursday’s announcement does not change Detroit’s defensive line in any meaningful way this week. It does keep one more body in the pipeline, which is the entire point of the practice squad once the games start counting.
