The offseason for the Detroit Lions has been good if you ask Bob Quinn, but the one area head coach Matt Patricia feels a sense of worry about is the tight end position.
“I would say right now, if we had to go line up and play, we’re probably short maybe at the tight end position,” Patricia said Tuesday morning over breakfast at the NFL owners meetings in Orlando. “Try to get another body in there if we can, from a free agency standpoint. But the good part is the draft’s coming. We’re still working through free agency. There’s still a lot of really good players out there that we’ll take a look at and try to inquire about. I think you’re continually building your roster, you’re continually trying to improve it the best that you can and that’s what’s most important.”
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I know, they released Eric Ebron, what do they expect? Quinn said recently that he wanted to keep Ebron, but he did not want to foot the bill of $8.25 million to keep him. The Lions tried to move Ebron before releasing him, but there were no takers because of the salary they would be taking on.
“You know, the salary that came along with the fifth-year option was something that we weighed, you know, really up until the last minute,” Quinn said. “It was just one of those things that we knew was coming down the pike. We obviously had some trade conversations with a few teams that didn’t work out, and so it came down to about the last hour or so before that 4 o’clock deadline.”
Quinn on Ebron’s salary hindering trade talks:
“Yeah, it was,” Quinn said. “We talked to a lot of teams, but I think, I guess the general response that I got was, ‘The number’s too big.’”
The Luke Willson signing can be looked at as the Lions trying to rebuild the tight end position one piece at a time. Wilson will more than likely be the backup, the same role he had in Seattle.
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The Lions are hoping that they’ll be able to address this position problem with the remaining free agent tight ends, and they’ll probably have their sights set on someone on their draft board. Picking up another free agent tight end sounds good to me, but the pool is starting to get pretty shallow. Listed below are some free agent tight ends still available.
| Julius Thomas | TE | 29 | MIA | TBD | – | ||||||
| Antonio Gates | TE | 37 | LAC | TBD | – | ||||||
| Brent Celek | TE | 33 | PHI | TBD | – | ||||||
| Marcedes Lewis | TE | 33 | JAC | TBD | – | ||||||
| Levine Toilolo | TE | 26 | ATL | TBD | – | ||||||
| Benjamin Watson | TE | 37 | BAL | TBD | – | ||||||
| Anthony Fasano | TE | 33 | MIA | TBD | – | ||||||
| Zach Miller | TE | 33 | CHI | TBD | – | ||||||
| Mychal Rivera | TE | 27 | JAC | TBD | – | ||||||
| Troy Niklas | TE | 25 | ARI | TBD | – | ||||||
| Clay Harbor | TE | 30 | NO | TBD | – | ||||||
| John Phillips | TE | 30 | NO | TBD | – | ||||||
| Brandon Williams | TE | 30 | IND | TBD | – | ||||||
| Jeff Cumberland | TE | 30 | LAC | TBD | – | ||||||
| Richard Rodgers | TE | 26 | GB | TBD | – | ||||||
| Chris Gragg | TE | 27 | NYJ | TBD | – | ||||||
| Scott Simonson | TE | 25 | CAR | TBD | – | ||||||
| Ifeanyi Momah | TE | 28 | ARI | TBD | |||||||
Looking at the above list, the pickings are getting slim, but Detroit could find “another body” as Patricia said.
It feels like Quinn and Patricia have a plan for this franchise overall, and the way they’ve been building depth at certain positions can be viewed a couple of different ways by fans. All that matters is having a winning organization, and hopefully, they can make that happen.
