It’s been a month since the Detroit Lions played their last football game, winning at Lambeau Field to keep the Green Bay Packers out of the playoffs and start what could be a changing of the guard in the NFC North.
Aaron Rodgers is headed for a four-day darkness retreat to evaluate his future, and when he emerges, he and the Packers may see the light of parting ways.
The Packers have been the team to beat in the division for most of the past three decades, in part because they’ve employed two straight Hall of Fame quarterbacks in Rodgers and Brett Favre. Maybe Jordan Love makes it three straight and the Packers’ run of excellence continues, but my feeling right now — and I suspect the feeling of a lot of people in and around the league — is that the Lions will enter 2023 as the favorite to win the division.
With that in mind, this promises to be an intriguing offseason for a Lions team that has two first-round draft picks, $16 million in available cap space (with more to come once veteran cuts and restructures start rolling in next week) and big decisions to make on several key players on its roster.
That’s where we start this week’s mailbag.
Q. Is an extension for Goff on the table this off-season? If so, how much? — @EvanSchnaitman
A. I get more questions about Jared Goff and the Lions quarterback situation than anything whenever I do a mailbag, and this week is no exception. Goff had a nice second season in Detroit. He threw for 4,438 yards and 29 touchdowns with seven interceptions, was a big reason the Lions won nine games, and I thought was a deserving addition to the Pro Bowl last week.
Goff will be the Lions quarterback in 2023 and if I was a betting man I’d guess beyond, but the answer to Evan’s question isn’t that simple. First, yes, I do think Goff’s representatives will inquire about an extension this offseason. There were rumblings they were interested in one last spring, and it’s their job to strike while the iron is hot.
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If I was Lions, though, I would not be in any hurry to do an extension — definitely not before the draft and probably not until next year. Goff is not in the same class of quarterback as players like Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert, who should sign record-setting deals this offseason. The Bengals and Chargers should be racing to re-sign Burrow and Herbert, respectively, to keep costs down. And while Goff’s price tag could go up by waiting, there’s still some risk in anchoring yourself to him as a quarterback.
If the Lions don’t draft a quarterback early, they might consider an extension for Goff this summer, knowing they won’t — or shouldn’t, at least — have another top-10 pick for a while. Looking at recent quarterback deals, Dak Prescott and Matthew Stafford got $40 million per season, Derek Carr got slightly more than that, and Kyler Murray’s five-year, $230 million extension averages about $46 million a season.
Goff, who’ll make about $26 million this year (including a roster bonus next month), averaged $33.5 million on his last contract, so he’s in line for a raise. I get why teams tend to pay their own quarterbacks. There’s a lot of fear of the unknown in the NFL, especially when job security is involved. From my chair, though, the only quarterbacks I’d anchor myself to longterm are ones in the Burrow, Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen class.
Q. Is it completely obtuse to expect a QB at 6? You wrote about it back when the lions were 1-6 do the lions really think Goff can be the long term guy after the abysmal games last year? — @99Karl_
A. This is the other part of the pay Goff debate. At No. 6, the Lions have the chance to get a young quarterback who would cost significantly less than Goff and allow them to build competitively in other areas of the team.
I do not expect the Lions to draft a quarterback at six (or 18), but if Brad Holmes and his scouting department decide Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud or Will Levis or Anthony Richardson has star potential, that’s the player they should take. The Packers drafted Rodgers when they had Favre and were coming off a 10-win, division championship season. The Chiefs traded up to take Mahomes when they had Alex Smith and were coming off a 12-win, AFC West-winning season. The San Francisco 49ers were a year removed from the Super Bowl when they traded up to get Trey Lance.
The Lions believe in Goff, and the way the NFC is constructed, they can have lots of success with him at quarterback. Having a star at the position seems more necessary in the AFC than the NFC right now.
I don’t see myself mocking a quarterback to the Lions at six this spring, but the Lions are in a position to rely wholly on their evaluations of the draft-eligible quarterbacks and not feel compelled to draft one to fill a need, and that’s a good spot to be in.
Q. If one of the top 3 QB’s is there at 6 what is the furthest you would trade back if another team comes calling? — @philbywestland
A. Last quarterback question, I promise.
If one of the top three quarterbacks (Young, Stroud or Levis) is available at six, that almost certainly means Jalen Carter and Will Anderson are not. I have no idea how the Lions’ draft board will shake out, but my early read on the draft is there will be a clump of defensive linemen and cornerbacks in the next tier of players who could interest the Lions, which gives them some leeway with how far down they go.
The Panthers at No. 9 seem like one trade-up candidate for a quarterback, and if Carter and Anderson are gone, the prospect available at six won’t be all that different from the one available at nine. Same goes for Tennessee at No. 11. Washington at No. 16 is the next logical quarterback-needy team. I’d need a 2024 first-round pick to go down that far, but for the right price I’d be willing to do it.
Again, it’s way too early to know what pool of prospects will be available in the middle of Round 1, but if the Lions got two of, say, Bijon Robinson, Myles Murphy, Devon Witherspoon and Joey Porter, plus a future first-round pick, that’d be a pretty good draft haul.
Q. You are usually pretty solid with your mock drafts, especially with the top 1st round picks. How soon before the draft do you usually start to really see the top of the draft coming together? — @Scosto6
A. Flattery will get your question answered every time in the mailbag.
In all seriousness, I don’t do any mock drafts until combine time, and I don’t really start working on them until the week before I leave for Indianapolis. My M.O. the last few years has been to do one every two weeks starting with the combine, which gives me a chance to do five or six before the draft and to make small tweaks leading up to draft week.
I don’t get too deep into prospect evaluations during the season as there’s usually a lot going on with the team I cover, though I’m certainly aware of the top players, the top in-state prospects and see others in my casual Saturday game watching. I tend to trust what I hear between the Senior Bowl and the combine the most when it comes to prospects, as I think the closer you get to the draft the more subterfuge is out there. Players can rise and fall (mostly because we in the media are late catching onto some players), but NFL teams have their first set of draft meetings late in the regular season and the BLESTO scouting service just had its underclass evaluation meetings, so most of the heavy lifting already is done.
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One other point on mock drafts: There are only so many “blue” players, the truly elite prospects in the draft, and I think most teams are hesitant to jump a “blue” for a lesser prospect, no matter the position. Quarterbacks can gum up the works a little. There will be a wide range of opinion on a guy like Levis this draft season. But if we know Young, Stroud, Anderson and Carter are the top prospects in this year’s draft, there’s a pretty good chance all four will go in the first four or five picks. It’s the next group of players where there’s a wider range of opinion among NFL teams.
Q. Who are the 3 starting players on the D that we can upgrade to make this a top 15 unit? One at each level? — @SweetLo27628792
A. I’ll treat this as sort of a “dream scenario” question, because while the Lions have some room to be spenders in free agency, Holmes has made it clear he won’t wade too heavily into the market.
Up front, I’d take Washington Commanders defensive tackle Daron Payne over Philadelphia Eagles tackle Javon Hargrave based on age (Payne is 25; Hargrave 30). The Lions are a good interior rusher away from having a top-half-of-the-NFL defense, and Payne and Hargrave are the two best on the market. Neither will be cheap, but if the Lions want an impact signing one of those players is the way to go.
In the secondary, as much as I like Bengals safety Jessie Bates, I’d have to take one of the top cornerbacks available, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Jamel Dean or the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Cameron Sutton. Dean is bigger, younger and his man-to-man coverage ability would pair nicely with Jerry Jacobs in Aaron Glenn’s defense, but Sutton had a nice year with 15 passes defenses and three interceptions.
At linebacker, the popular choice probably would be the Bucs’ Lavonte David, but I’d prefer to spend my free agent dollars on mid-20-somethings, so I’d bring Tennessee Titans linebacker and former Michigan star David Long home. Long is one of the best coverage linebackers in the NFL and is an ascending player coming off his best season. He’d be an every down player in Detroit.
If the Lions landed all three of those players, that would go a long way towards fixing their defense. But there’s next to no chance of that happening.
Q. It seems increasingly likely Detroit could lose both their offensive and defensive coordinators by next offseason. Are there coaches on the staff now you see as likely/potential successors to Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn? — @andrewkeck
A. Andrew is right. If the Lions have any sort of success next season, they could end up losing both Johnson and Glenn to head coaching jobs elsewhere. Johnson interviewed for three jobs this offseason, with the Carolina Panthers, Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans, and Glenn had two interviews (with Indy and the Arizona Cardinals).
The Lions have a handful of in-house candidates for their coordinator jobs should Johnson and Glenn move on. On defense, Todd Wash seems like the next in line. Wash was defensive coordinator with the Jacksonville Jaguars for five seasons and has done a good job with the Lions’ front. If not Wash, linebackers coach Kelvin Sheppard is on the coordinator track.
On offense, pass game coordinator Tanner Engstrand seems next in line given his role on offense. Engstrand is a former quarterback and ex-tight ends coach, and both those jobs are prime springboards to being a coordinator. I do think both Lions’ jobs will be desirable enough, though, to attract top outside candidates, and Dan Campbell should cast a wide net if and when he needs to find replacements for those jobs.
Q. Will we draft a Kicker or continue to take our chances with undrafted rookies and retreads? — @TeachingZeus
A. Michael Badgley made 20 of 24 field goals to stabilize the kicking position after his midseason arrival, but that’s probably not enough for him to be entrenched in the job in 2023. The Lions did not sign a kicker to a future’s deal immediately after the season and it seems likely they will at least consider the position in this year’s draft.
Last year, the Cleveland Browns took the draft’s only kicker, Cade York, in the fourth round, but historically the first kickers have come off the board around Round 5. That’s where the first kicker went in 2017-21, including some of the NFL’s best kickers like Daniel Carlson and Jake Elliott.
The Lions don’t currently have a fourth-round pick, so they’ll have to hope for that trend to continue if they want a player like Maryland’s Chad Ryland or Michigan’s Jake Moody this year. They do have a fifth-round pick and two sixes, so they should have ample opportunity to take one if they want to go that route.
Q. Coming out to Detroit opening day again this year, gonna go across the water into Canada for a day trip, any must see’s or try’s over there? — @503LionsFan
A. I like to end the mailbag with something non-football related, but it’s been a minute since I’ve visited my friends across the border so I’m a little light on suggestions. There’s a casino there, if that’s your thing, and there’s a few bars and breweries downtown. If you have any suggestions I can pass on to a Lions fan, send them my way. And don’t forget your passport or you’ll be sent home.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.