No, the Detroit Lions are not lagging behind with their free agent re-signing. Promotions usually don’t start until Sunday.
Why haven’t the Detroit Lions re-signed Jamaal Williams yet? What the hell are they waiting for John Cominski? Did the Lions dump all their free agents low????
It’s the Friday before free agency week and I can already feel the blood pressure of Lions fans rising as the team has been eerily quiet all week. Their only announcement was to randomly bring back backup offensive lineman Ross Pierschbacher.
But I’m here to tell you all to relax. I know we’re excited to get some of our favorite Lions players back, but nothing this week has been out of the ordinary. As former Packers front office member Andrew Brandt likes to say, “Deadlines spur action,” and Detroit still has until Monday before any of these players can even negotiate with another team and an additional two days until they can sign with another team.
All you have to do is look at the past year and see that Leos are just following their own timeline. On the Friday before free agency opened in 2022, the Lions re-signed just three players: Josh Reynolds, Rashod Berry and Ryan McCollum.
Not surprisingly, the action started coming in on Sunday — the day before free agency tinkering began.
Deadlines that drive action.
That Sunday, the Lions re-signed Alex Anzalone, Jalen Elliott, Shaun Dion Hamilton and CJ Moore. The next day saw Detroit’s big re-signing of Tracy Walker, with Evan Brown and Tim Boyle signing later in the day.
So when John Cominsky says he’s going to test the market for a few days, that’s only normal. You see what’s out there and there’s a more than reasonable chance it will still come back. A prime example is Kalif Raymond and Charles Harris, who agreed to terms on the second day of the fumble and officially signed later in the week. They waited to see the market and then returned to Detroit. It’s a smart way to see your own value and negotiate.
And the Lions are far from the only team to do that. Just look at this week of NFL transactions. From Monday:
- The Giants re-signed Daniel Jones
- The Falcons re-signed Lorenzo Carter
- The Texans re-signed Scott Quessenberry
- The Giants have re-signed Jarrad Davis
- The Lions re-signed Ross Pierschbacher
- The 49ers re-signed Colton McKivitz
- The Patriots re-signed James Ferentz
- The Raiders have re-signed Ameer Abdullah
- The Bengals re-signed Joe Bachie and Jalen Davis
Only a few moves have taken place, and essentially no big names have come off the board yet. This is a standard work procedure today, but we forget it every year.
I understand. We are all excited to have our boys back on the team. And while there’s no guarantee that all the guys we want back will be back, we won’t know for the next few days. Until then, enjoy the calm before the storm.
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