Free agency offers Detroit Lions GM Bob Quinn and head coach Matt Patricia the chance to patch some holes on the roster with proven veterans. It’s a great way to radically improve the team, and the Lions have considerable salary cap room to make some serious moves.
Not every free agent is worth the contract investment, however. Avoiding the high-priced free agent misses (Trumaine Johnson and Le’Veon Bell spring to mind) is just as important as scoring a smart signing to a good contract (Glover Quin and Marvin Jones).
Here are some big names and presumably big contracts the Lions need to avoid on the free agent market later this winter when the signing period opens:
Jadeveon Clowney
Clowney’s name carries cache as a former No. 1 overall pick by the Houston Texans. The Seahawks EDGE is a schematic fit and still young, turning just 27 on Valentine’s Day. But he’s a player Quinn and Patricia desperately need to avoid bidding on in free agency.
Remember how disgusted, how defeated you felt as a Lions fan reading Ziggy Ansah’s name on the injury list every week? Clowney has done that to the fans in both Houston and Seattle over the past few seasons. He has played all 16 games just once in his NFL career (2017). And believe it or not, he’s been less productive while on the field than Ansah was in Detroit.
Clowney has never hit double-digits in sacks. Last year in Seattle, Clowney bagged three sacks and seven TFLs in 13 games. That is not premium production and it doesn’t merit premium pay.
Any QB over age 35
This lumps in but is not restricted to: Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Philip Rivers.
The name recognition is very high with the veteran greats hitting the market. Brady and Brees are inarguably among the greatest to ever play, while Rivers has tasted significant success in his 16 seasons too. All three still have something to offer NFL teams.
What they offer is not what the Lions need in 2020, however. And as short-term solutions, they’re creating more of a long-term problem than any one-year benefit could possibly provide Detroit. Signing Brady for one season at a fair market value of $30 million means the Lions will need a QB in 2021, and the exorbitant combination of paying Brady (or Brees) that much and also paying Matthew Stafford $10 million more not to play for the Lions this year than to play — thanks to his recent restructure, that’s the poison pill — the team won’t be able to add any help at any other position.
If you are a believer that quarterback was the biggest problem on the Lions in 2019, even when Stafford was healthy, then chasing after a legend for a swan song makes some sense. Otherwise, it’s completely pointless for both the Lions and the players themselves to pay a past-his-prime QB for a one-year bandaid while also paying Stafford $10 million extra to go away.
Derrick Henry
I just wrote about Henry and his potential as a Lions target in free agency. He’s certainly an alluring prospect as the reigning NFL rushing champion. The way he carried (no pun intended) the Titans all the way to the AFC Championship game was eye-opening.
Henry’s a great player. He will be compensated as such, and that’s the problem for the Titans. If Tennessee is reluctant to lock him up after all Henry did for them the last two seasons, that’s a flag that Henry is poised to exceed his contract value.
Overpaying for a position with such a short shelf-life simply doesn’t make sense. There’s too much risk involved in building around a unique RB with the volume of carries Henry has on his legs already with such an expected hefty contract.
Joe Schobert
Schobert is the best off-ball LB in the free agent class. He’s arguably the best coverage LB in the league, and he proved in 2019 he can handle being more of a playmaker. So why wouldn’t the Lions want a player who has averaged over 125 tackles a year in the last three seasons while providing great coverage and some ability to generate pressure off the blitz?
Part of the reason is the current investment in his position. The Lions just gave Christian Jones a contract extension. They drafted Jahlani Tavai in the second round last April and Tavai played well enough the coaching staff trusted him to call the complex defense. Devon Kennard is the JACK, with young Austin Bryant grooming under him in a role that Schobert doesn’t really play anyway. Jarrad Davis still looms, too.
Part of the reason is the expected contract. Recent contracts signed by Shaq Thompson and Kwon Alexander put Schobert’s presumed asking price in the $14-$16 million per year range. That’s an awful lot of money for an off-ball LB who almost never made “splash” plays until his contract season, a player who led the NFL in missed tackles in 2018 and tops the league-wide list over the last three years, too.
Trae Waynes
The longtime Vikings cornerback has been a steady coverage man in his five NFL seasons, but Waynes has never quite made the proverbial next step. There is value in what Waynes, Minnesota’s first-round pick in 2015 out of Michigan State, offers to potential suitors.
When the best thing a cornerback offers is reliable tackling in the run game — and Waynes does that as well as anyone — it’s probably not a smart idea to trust him as an island corner in man coverage. That’s what the Lions defense needs opposite, or perhaps in place of, Darius Slay. Another tenet of the Lions defense is to not surrender big plays, and that’s really not Waynes’ game.
Per Pro Football Focus stats, Waynes has given up 16 TD passes in the last four seasons, including five last year. His QB Rating allowed when targeted of 109.9 was worse than Justin Coleman in his first year as a prominent Lions free agent. Coleman was not impressive and not worth the hefty contract he received from Detroit. This is where Quinn and Patricia show they can learn from their prior errors.
If he were better and offered more long-term promise, the Vikings would have made more of an effort to keep Waynes. There are other, more appealing CB options on the market for what figures to be less of a financial commitment.
