The Detroit Lions have announced that they have released wide receiver Andy Jones from the reserve/injured list. Because he was never part of their established 53-man roster, no subsequent roster move is required/available.
Jones was part of the Lions final cuts on Saturday, but because he was injured the Lions were required to release him with an injury designation. He passed through waivers unclaimed and due to his designation, reverted back to the Lions roster.
At this point, the Lions had three options. Option one, promote him to the active roster, which they had already elected not to do once. Option two, place him on injured reserve, where he would be unable to return to the field for at least eight weeks and the Lions would be responsible for his entire salary. Option three, reach an injury settlement with Jones’ agent, thus allowing Jones to become a free agent.
The Lions chose option three, which comes with some restrictions for the team.
As part of the injury settlement, a length of recovery time must be determined and is included in the equation for determining payment. Jones is free to sign with another team but if he wanted to rejoin the Lions, he would be restricted from doing so until three weeks after the previously determined recovery time.
The Lions did this exact thing with Zach Zenner last season — and Josh Bynes in 2016 — after he was recovering from back surgery and it’s possible they could do the same with Jones, but when is unclear because we don’t know the agreed upon length of recovery time.
It’s also worth noting that the Lions have been willing to wait on Jones to recover from injury in the past. Last season, they were in this same position and chose option two above, returning him from injured reserve for the final eight games.
