Brad Holmes and the Detroit Lions’ front office will have plenty of time to plan for the summer now that the team has been eliminated from the playoffs.
In addition to recruiting players for a potential postseason run, Holmes and company should be occupied with keeping hold of those who were essential to their team’s playoffs success this year.
Holmes will also need to break up relationships with some of the organization’s present members and make a number of difficult decisions.
Let’s look at five Lions players that might not be back with the squad in 2024 without further ado.
Reynolds was one of Jared Goff’s most dependable targets in the regular season, with 40 receptions, 608 yards, and five touchdowns. During their tenure with the Rams (2017–2020), he and Goff developed a close relationship that has undoubtedly helped the two of them throughout the last three seasons in Detroit.
But sadly, none of that will stick in Reynolds’ memory. He will be remembered for severely disappointing the Lions in the NFC championship game, most notably for intercepting a ball from quarterback Jared Goff during a third-quarter fourth-down conversion attempt. That was the start of a string of bad things happening to Detroit throughout the quarter, from which Goff & Co. were never able to recover.
Reynolds completed the postseason game with three interceptions in all, and his poor performance cost him a miserable PFF overall rating of 51.6.
This could have been the wide receiver’s final game with the Lions as he will be an unrestricted free agency this offseason.
LG Jackson Jonah
Since the Lions selected Jackson in the 2020 draft, he has been a vital component of the offensive line.
But because he will be a free agent in the winter, his time in the Motor City may be coming to an end.
Jackson, who was selected to the Pro Bowl in 2021, saw a decline in performance in the previous season while playing in a career-low 12 games and 798 offensive snaps. In addition, he had a career-worst run-blocking mark of 58.2 in 2023 after getting PFF run-blocking grades north of 70.0 in 2021 and 2022. In addition, he gave up eight quarterback hits and 24 total pressures, which led to PFF giving him a horrible overall rating of 59.7.
This decline in Jackson’s output suggests, in my opinion, that the Lions will have a new starting left guard in 2024.
Vaitai Halapoulivaati OL
From the moment he moved to the Motor City, Vaitai has struggled to maintain his health.
However, the injury bug has especially reared its ugly head for the veteran lineman over the course of the past two seasons. In 2022 and 2023 combined, he suited up for a total of just six games, and he failed to log a single snap in ‘22.
In his defense, he did record respectable overall grades of 68.4 and 68.3 in 2021 and 2023, respectively. Yet, with him set to be a free agent this upcoming offseason, I don’t envision there being a better time than now for Holmes to part ways with the big-bodied lineman.
Glasgow was a good, under-the-radar free agent that Holmes signed in the previous summer.
The seasoned offensive tackle, who played his first four seasons in Detroit, made a second trip back to Motown in 2023 when he joined the Lions. Denver was his home for the past three seasons.
Glasgow played both guard and center, and he was a great plug-and-play player in the offensive line’s interior. Most significantly, he solidified the right guard position by taking over as Detroit’s full-time starting at right guard from the frequently injured Halapoulivaati Vaitai.
He gave up only two sacks in 1,061 offensive snaps overall, and he was very good at creating rushing lanes for David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs, the Lions’ backfield duo. Pro Football Focus gave him an 82.1 for his run-blocking abilities. Additionally, he scored 75.1 overall on the well-known analytics website.
The Lions undoubtedly want him on their roster come 2024. But last summer, Holmes signed him to a one-year contract. Therefore, there’s no assurance that Detroit will have the astute guard back for the upcoming campaign.
Duce, who was originally drafted by the Lions as C.J. Gardner-Johnson, found it difficult to stay on the field during what may be his final season in the Motor City. He only committed to a one-year contract in the previous summer, and in 2023, he fell short of expectations.
The seasoned defensive back did not play again until the Lions’ regular-season finale against the Vikings after rupturing his pectoral muscle in Week 2’s game against the Seattle Seahawks.
Duce only played in three regular season games, but in that time, he recorded one interception, three passes defensed, and a 72.7 PFF overall grade.
Those were not bad figures. That conference championship game against Deebo Samuel and the 49ers, though, was when he lay an egg. In addition to missing three tackles and receiving a 15-yard unnecessary roughness call against Samuel, he also had the lowest overall PFF grade on the squad (33.9). Even worse, he and Samuel had a verbal altercation before to the game, and he lost the on-field conflict with the versatile receiver.
This offseason, it wouldn’t surprise me if Holmes and company decided to part ways with Gardner-Johnson.
