Getty Kenny Golladay prepares for a game.
The clock is ticking on a decision for the Detroit Lions with their talented wideout Kenny Golladay, but the franchise doesn’t seem to be interested in rushing to make or reveal their choice about what to do.
Speaking on Tuesday, Detroit general manager Brad Holmes was asked about the Golladay issue and explained that he understands the talent of the wide receiver and the advantage it provides his team. Even such, he admitted there is no panic at this point about making a decision on the franchise tag. Holmes all but hinted that the Lions are going to take their time with a decision in the week ahead.
Brad Holmes: “I don’t think there’s any debate that Kenny (Golladay) has shown the ability to be a number one receiver in this league.”
Added that the Lions need to make the best decision for their roster but also for Golladay. “You’ll hear about what we’ll be doing shortly.”
Detroit has until March 9 to make the call with Golladay on the franchise tag, and many see it more than likely that the team will use the tag when all is said and done. No matter that, it seems the Lions are going to take things down to the wire as it relates to making the official call.
Lions Options With Kenny Golladay
There are plenty of things the team could do at this point with Golladay, including simply tagging the wideout, keeping him on the team and negotiating a new deal later. Others have hypothesized that the Lions could tag Golladay and try to trade him for a high draft pick this season. The Lions could also keep Golladay and elect to trade him later during the NFL trade deadline, especially if the team is scuffling midseason. Likely, charting out all these outcomes is the reason the team is taking their time with the official decision. There’s plenty to think about, including the potential to also negotiate a long-term deal with Golladay ahead of the tag deadline if they think they can get one done.
Whatever happens, it’s a situation to watch in the coming days.
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Lions Have Big Decision With Kenny Golladay
With 3,068 yards and 21 touchdowns thus far in his career coming into the 2021 season on the field after being a third-round pick in 2017, Golladay looks like an obvious top dog in Detroit for the foreseeable future no matter who is playing quarterback and a clear home grown talent for the team. He proved that to be the case in 2020 itself with 338 yards and 2 scores in spite of missing most of the season with nagging injuries. Reports say Gollday is healthy now.
Even in spite of all of that, the Lions have plenty of things going on multiple fronts. Dan Campbell, Brad Holmes, Ray Agnew and John Dorsey are now in control of the direction of the team for the future. Obviously, this means that Golladay’s future is firmly up in the air considering it will be hard to say what a new staff will think of handing out a big deal to a wideout, no matter how important Golladay might be to the team. Holmes said the Lions want to retool and not rebuild, so keeping a guy like Golladay around could play into that, especially given the depth the Lions are slated to lose at wideout.
Golladay has maintained he wants to stay and seems to have good thoughts about Dan Campbell and the Lions. It remains to be seen if that will matter.