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Voluntary workouts are set to begin next week for the Detroit Lions. What this means is that players under contract can converge on Allen Park and start taking part in the Lions' offseason conditioning program.
Although defensive end Cliff Avril is planning to be in the Detroit area next week, right now he can't participate in the workouts. He is not under contract because he hasn't signed his one-year franchise tender, and it doesn't appear he is planning on signing it in the immediate future. He is going to be in the area just in case something happens, though.
"I think we’re going to continue to try and get something done hopefully and we’ll see how it goes," Avril said.
Avril is hoping to get a deal done, but as we've seen over the past year, simply hoping to get a deal done doesn't necessarily mean much in terms of negotiations. The Lions and Avril both had hoped to get a new deal done a while ago, but so far no long-term contract has been agreed to.
Side note: Unrelated to Avril's contract but mentioned in the same article is that he is going to walk at Purdue's graduation in May. He has been taking classes to complete his business marketing degree and will officially graduate from Purdue next month. Congrats to Cliff on achieving that feat.
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