In his third NFL season, Lions wide receiver Kenny Golladay broke through from being a quality starter to a Pro Bowl standout. Golladay led the league in TD receptions and posted a career-high 1,190 yards despite playing without starting quarterback Matthew Stafford for half the year.
Golladay accomplished those feats while earning less than a million dollars in 2019. For that, he earned the title of biggest bargain on the Lions from Bleacher Report.
As analyst Brad Gagnon notes, the price tag for Golladay is going up soon. But No. 19 was an easy choice for the big bargain in Detroit in 2019. He even earned a significant merit-based pay bump already.
And because he’s a 2017 third-round pick working on a rookie deal, the two-time 1,000-yard receiver did all that despite a cap hit of just $855,706.
That number will shoot up to $2.3 million in the final year of his entry-level contract, and Golladay will likely become extremely expensive soon after that. But for now, he’s one of the biggest bargains in professional football. A ridiculous 116 receivers from the 2019 season had contracts with higher average annual salaries.
Given his production, the Lions’ current cap room and the fact there is not a single wideout on the Detroit roster signed beyond 2020, perhaps Golladay could be getting a much bigger contract very soon…
