ALLEN PARK -- Safety Quandre Diggs was a declining player with a ballooning contract. Throw in the rise of third-round picks like Tracy Walker and Will Harris at the position, and you can understand why the Lions moved on while they could still get something in return.

But that doesn’t make his trade to the Seattle Seahawks go down any easier in a locker room that just voted him team captain two months ago, and now must watch him suit up for another NFC playoff hopeful.

“This some bull(expletive) right here,” star cornerback Darius Slay tweeted.

Slay did not appear in the locker room during the 45 minutes that were open to reporters on Wednesday, a day after Diggs was shipped to Seattle for a fifth-round pick. (Detroit also gave up a seventh-round pick in 2021 in the deal.) Those who did show up tried to put the right spin on the loss of a cornerstone player, but the loss was palpable.

“It’s a business,” Walker said, standing just a few feet from Diggs’ empty stall in the heart of the locker room. “That’s the business aspect of it, and you can’t have your feelings connected to it. Like I say, just because Quandre’s gone -- I wish him the best -- but at the end of the day, I got to focus on what the Detroit Lions have going on right now. So right now, I’m preparing for the New York Giants.”

Walker, a third-round pick last year, didn’t play much as a rookie. But he learned a whole lot from playing behind guys like Diggs and Glover Quin, veterans who have done it for a long time. And now, in the span of 10 months, they’re both gone.

Detroit is going young at the position, banking on the size, speed and versatility of guys like Walker and Harris being enough to overcome the brain drain in the back of the defense. Walker has already developed enough that he was outplaying Diggs in Year 2 anyway. He leads the team in tackles (50) while playing a team-high 96.6% of the defensive snaps. He’s also forced one fumble, picked off one pass and defended four passes overall.

With the more versatile Harris set to join him in the lineup, Walker should be freed up to do more of what he’s best at, which is dropping back and patrolling the back line of the defense. Still, he was obviously shaken by the loss of a friend and mentor.

“It’s tough," he said, “but at the end of the day, you got to move on.”

The move could serve as a wake-up call for the locker room that nothing matters more than on-field performance -- not even being voted captain -- although Walker said he wasn’t thinking that way in the aftermath of the deal.

“I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t get into all that," Walker said. "As long as I’m here and my fingerprint works, that’s all I care about.”

The leader to replace Diggs as the full-time strong safety is Harris, a third-round pick out of Boston College. At 6-foot-1, he offers more versatility than Diggs, especially in coverage and in the box. And that makes him an excellent fit for the Matt Patricia defense.

This sort of sudden starting assignment could be a lot to handle for a player who was playing in the ACC this time last year, but Harris has looked ready for weeks. The team was especially pleased with his performance against Kansas City and Green Bay, when Diggs went down with a hamstring injury -- and then Detroit hardly missed a beat, holding Patrick Mahomes to his worst game of the year and Aaron Rodgers to 13 points in 50 minutes before losing late.

“Before you play these guys, you have a certain -- especially as a rookie -- it has a certain stigma to it to play such and such -- Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, whatever,” Harris said. “But after all the film study you do in the week, and all the work you put in, on game day, we’re just playing football. So, that’s how I treat it, is playing football for this team, and that’s it.

“To be honest with you, I just try to prepare for every game, I just try to prepare for every week, the same way. So that when my number’s called -- if my number’s called -- I’ll be ready. I try to prepare as if I were a starter, I try to prepare as if my number is going to be called, so when my number is called, I can go in and just execute.”

While Harris and Walker figure to be the primary safeties, the club also has a lot of faith in veteran Tavon Wilson, who is in his fourth season with Detroit and was with Matt Patricia in New England before that. He’s good in the box -- which could come in handy against a running back like Saquon Barkley on Sunday -- and ranks 40th among all safeties according to ProFootballFocus.

An eighth -year veteran, Wilson is a seasoned pro who wasn’t exactly surprised by the trade.

“In this league, nothing surprises you,” Wilson said. “(The front office) is working all the time to make this team better and doing whatever they can to win games, so you really can’t be surprised by anything at all."