When free agents are free to sign with new teams starting Wednesday afternoon (barring any coronavirus-related intervention), several Detroit Lions from the 2019 roster will officially become ex-Lions. Some of that will be by choice of the team itself, as is the case with starting right guard Graham Glasgow and punter Sam Martin. Some of it will be by the choice of the players themselves, too.
Don’t expect many of the pending free agents to be back in Honolulu blue and silver.
Dave Birkett of the Free Press offered his odds on each of the team’s pending free agents returning to the Lions den in 2020. His most likely to stay in Detroit are sensible: backup TE Logan Thomas, rotational OL Kenny Wiggins and backup QB Jeff Driskel.
Those aren’t the big names like Mike Daniels, A’Shawn Robinson or Glasgow. Don’t expect any of those players back, though Daniels has expressed some desire to stay in Detroit. The Lions have the money to spend to get younger, more dynamic and more impactful upside with players from the outside at those spots.
Keeping Thomas at tight end might be hard too. He emphatically outplayed last year’s big offensive free agent, Jesse James, from the very first day of training camp. But James earns over $5.2 million this year and more in 2021 and 2022, and his dead cap figure in 2020 means eating over $8 million of the just over $50 million in current cap room. The Lions also like what they’ve seen from 2019 seventh-rounder Isaac Nauta as depth behind first-round rookie T.J. Hockenson. There might not be room to keep Thomas.
As for guys like Robinson, Martin, Glasgow and erstwhile starting safety Tavon Wilson, to quote Johnny Utah at the end of Point Break, “he’s not coming back”.