ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Detroit has started to feel like home for Ezekiel Ansah. But the Lions defensive end understands the realities of the professional sports world, so he’s aware this year might be his last in Detroit.
Not that he necessarily wants that to happen.
Ansah enters a contract year in 2017, the final year of his five-year rookie deal. He didn’t say much about his future Tuesday, other than if something happens, “you’ll be the first person to know when anything happens.”
“I don’t pay attention to that at all,” Ansah said. “I know I’m still under contract. I’ll be here in 2017, and like I said, the focus for the year is to win a championship. First of all, try to get into the playoffs, and after that it is what it is. But the goal is to win a championship.”
Any chance the Lions would have at a championship would require Ansah to return to the player he was in 2015, when he made the Pro Bowl and finished third in the NFL with 14.5 sacks.
Last season didn’t go as well, as Ansah was hampered by an ankle injury for much of the year. He missed three games and went sackless the first three-plus months of the season before finishing with two sacks. The Lions also suffered, as their inability to rush opposing quarterbacks efficiently partially led to the highest opposing quarterback completion percentage in NFL history (72.9) last season.
His goal for 2017 is to return to his 2015 form. While he didn’t want to put a number on it, he wants to return to double-digit sacks -- something that, if he’s able to achieve it, likely will get him paid very well by the Lions or someone else.
When Ansah went back to Ghana in the offseason, he said his brother, Elias, told him to approach 2017 “like you have nothing.”
While Ansah was the No. 5 overall pick in the 2013 draft, he was still raw after playing football for less than a handful of years after arriving at BYU. There was a point in his not-too-distant past when he knew next to nothing about football. He’s come a long way since then -- from a neophyte at BYU to one of the NFL’s top pass-rushers, which is why last year bothered him so much.
“I take it personal,” Ansah said. “I feel like I didn’t do my job. That is what I’m paid to do, so if I’m not able to accomplish that, that’s something that you wasn’t able to do right. So, like I said, I’m really focused this year.
“I’m real excited about what we’ve got coming up, and it’s definitely going to be better than last year.”
The way 2016 ended bothered Ansah, too. He played well against Seattle in the wild-card round of the playoffs with nine tackles and two sacks, but the Lions did not. They lost 26-6, the second time in his career the franchise lost in the first round of the playoffs, continuing a streak of not winning a postseason game dating back to the playoffs following the 1991 season.
Ansah said he’ll be over the loss to the Seahawks by the time the 2017 season starts, but it’s clearly something that bothers him.
“I think I got to find a way to get over it, because I do go back and watch film and how hard we played and were just not able to come out on top, it was hard to take in,” Ansah said. “But like I said, 2016 is over and I’m looking forward to this year.”