The Detroit Lions are playing with fire by not extending Kenny Golladay

While many other top NFL receivers enjoyed contract extensions, the Detroit Lions continue to do Kenny Golladay wrong.

The Detroit Lions need to make re-signing star receiver Kenny Golladay a priority, yet the franchise continues to side-step the situation.  Leading up to the start of the 2020 regular season, we’ve seen players like Keenan Allen, Cooper Kupp, and even Robert Woods land lucrative extensions. General manager Bob Quinn seems reluctant to dish out the $20-million per season it will take to tie one of the leagues’ top pass-catchers to the franchise for years to come.

Extending Golladay seems like a no-brainer.

Last season Golladay led the NFL with 11 touchdowns that while playing just eight games with Matthew Stafford under center.  The teams’ top-three pass-catchers at the position are all pending free agents.

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We can accept the fact that the organization can ill-afford to retain everyone, but watching an ineffective Marvin Jones (thus far in 2020) or the possession specialist Danny Amendola walk in free agency is one thing, but playing Russian roulette with Golladay is a dangerous game.

Recently Golladay posted on his Instagram account, “this (explicit) is going to cost you.”

If Detroit fails to reach an agreement with Golladay’s camp on a new deal, the organization will have the ability to use the franchise tag in the offseason to secure his services next year.  That tag will be worth about $18-million.  At this point, Golladay won’t sign a long-term for anything less than that.

The only thing that I can think of that may be holding up this extension would be Detroit being reluctant to pay a receiver, basically ten percent of the entire teams’ salary cap.  This season the whole Detroit Lions receiving corps accounts for less than nine percent of the teams’ total cap in 2020; Jones accounts for about half of that.

Paying a big-time wide receiver can be detrimental to the cap, but not retaining said playmaker is equally damaging to the product on the field.

I vote to pay the man, and unlike the same organization had been able to do with Calvin Johnson in the past, surround him with cheap/young talented complementary pieces.

If Golladay isn’t rewarded with a new deal, I fear the asking price will continue to increase.  Sure the organization will be able to use the franchise tag next year, but then what?  It is a dangerous trend to begin.  The second time a franchise uses the tag, it vastly increases along with generally severing relationships; players want security; take the whole Le’Veon Bell, Pittsburgh Steelers fiasco for example.