Detroit Lions: 7 players who could be gone in 2018
By Zac Snyder
With the playoffs out of reach, week 17 will be the end of the line for some players as Detroit Lions. Here are some players who could be gone next season.
Every NFL roster sees roster turnover from year to year and the Detroit Lions will be no exception heading into 2018. While some players are under contract and have cemented themselves as cornerstone players going forward, others have a far less certain future.
That means week 17 will be the last time some players suit up as Detroit Lions. One player who might have made this list earlier in the season is tight end Eric Ebron. Though the fifth year on his rookie contract was picked up by the deadline last offseason it is guaranteed for injury only. A slow start to his season brought into doubt whether the Lions would stick with that option year but a solid finish should make hanging on to Ebron for another year an easy decision.
At a little over $8 million, Ebron will see a nice bump in salary but it isn’t out of line with the tight end market. Whether or not the Lions are comfortable committing to Ebron at that level for multiple years remains to be seen, but that kind of decision can be deferred by at least a year.
Rumors are already swirling that Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers could be Jim Caldwell’s last as head coach of the Lions. Which players are facing a smiliar situation of possibly putting on the Honolulu blue and silver for a final time?
In previous years it has been easy to start a list like this with some players whose role or production doesn’t match up with an inflated salary cap number. In cases like that it can be an easy decision for a front office to move on and reap salary cap savings as a result. Credit to general manager Bob Quinn and Matt Harriss, Quinn’s salary cap guru, the Lions don’t have much in the way of out of whack cap numbers.
Sure, there are some players to quibble over, like Cornelius Washington who the Lions could retain for a 2018 cap hit of almost $3.5 million or release him to save a little over $2.7 million, but we aren’t talking about big contracts that will swing the Lions one way or the other.
That means roster decisions going forward can be about football rather than accounting. That’s great news for Quinn as he enters his third year building the roster. Here are some players who might not be part of that plan.