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With the NFL Combine in the rear view mirror, it’s officially rumor season. NFL free agency is next week, and reporters across the league are sharing their tidbits they learned from talking to agents, coaches, and front office members.
When it comes to the Detroit Lions, we’re already getting conflicting information on what may be ahead for general manager Brad Holmes and company.
Let’s start with national reporter Albert Breer. He expects the Lions to address their offensive line—a fairly easy conclusion to come to. However, the bigger news is Breer believes the Lions could be in play for arguably the biggest free agent out there this offseason: Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum.
“I’d expect the acquisition of (Juice) Scruggs to be the first one in a little bit of an offensive line reworking,” Breer wrote. “Detroit’s identity was built through that position group through Dan Campbell’s first four years, and fell off a bit last year. To get it back to where it was, I wouldn’t rule out a big swing by Detroit, maybe on someone such as Ravens free-agent center Tyler Linderbaum.”
Last week, Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said the team would like to retain Linderbaum and even said they’ve already offered him a deal that would make him the highest-paid center.
“Tyler’s a guy I have tremendous respect for. Obviously, he’s proven to be, in my opinion, the best center in the league,” DeCosta said. “We’ve been having conversations, we’ve had conversations since the end of the season, and at this point in time, we’ve made him a market-setting deal proposal offer, and hopefully we can get something done with him between now and the start of the new league year.”
The Lions are certainly in the market for a center after releasing Graham Glasgow this week. It’s possible Juice Scruggs, whom the Lions acquired via the David Montgomery trade, could contend for that spot. Another possibility is the Lions move second-year offensive lineman Tate Ratledge to center.
Which brings us to a rumor conflicting Breer’s reporting.
Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press talked to several agents at the NFL Combine, and he got the sense that Detroit could be pretty inactive in free agency, noting the Lions may just go with Ratledge at the pivot.
“Multiple agents who met with the Lions at the NFL combine do not expect the team to be major players in free agency, and one who spoke with the team believes they will move Tate Ratledge to center and open competition at the guard spots,“ Birkett wrote on Tuesday.
So there you have it. Either the Lions will be super aggressive in free agency and possibly land the best center in football, or they’ll be very modest in free agency and move their guard with limited center experience into the starting center role.
For what it’s worth, Lions general manager Brad Holmes certainly seemed a bit more open to the idea of spending in free agency when talking about it at the NFL Combine.
“We’ll have flexibility to do some things,” Holmes said. “I don’t think every single year is the same. It’s not just last year we had this approach but it could be entirely different this year.”
The “legal tampering” period opens on Monday, March 9 at 12 p.m. ET.