News: Taylor Decker’s Contract Year Confession – Detroit Lion Vows Never to Leave
ALLEN PARK — As the Detroit Lions head into the offseason, there has been plenty of talk about which players are up for contract extensions. Jared Goff, now headed into the final year of his deal, could get a big payday. Amon-Ra St. Brown, also headed into the final year of his deal, could get one too.
But what about Taylor Decker?
The veteran left tackle is the longest-tenured player left in Detroit, but embodies everything this rebuild is about. He’s tough, he’s physical, he’s talented as hell, and he’s a critical piece to the Lions’ vaunted offensive line, which has turned into the engine for one of the league’s most explosive offenses. But his contract is up after next season, and with stars like Goff and St. Brown also to take care of — plus fellow offensive tackle Penei Sewell in the not-so-distant future — will Detroit have the resources to extend Decker beyond 2024 too?
Those talks have not yet occurred in a serious way, and even Decker doesn’t know what his future holds — although he sure as heck hopes it’s in Detroit one way or another.
“I definitely want to end my career here,” Decker told MLive. “I would say ultimately, for me, this is where I want to be. Of course you want money, but for me, I like being here. I love being here. I was able to be a part of climbing out of the trenches of it, and it’s been fun the past year-and-a-half to see the flip side of it. Whatever happens with the contract, I don’t know. There’s been nothing of substance with (negotiations) so far. But ultimately, do I want to be here forever? One-hundred percent. So, we’ll see.”
A first-round pick in the 2016 draft, Decker has seen a lot of dark years in Detroit. He made the playoffs as a rookie, then languished through the firing of Jim Caldwell and four straight last-place finishes. But Decker continued to play really good ball at one of the game’s most important positions, and was rewarded with a five-year, $59.65 million contract extension just days before the start of the 2020 season.
Now he’s become one of the faces of the Brand New Lions, an essential veteran voice for one of the league’s youngest rosters, and logged his 100th start at left tackle for the franchise last season, becoming just the fourth offensive tackle to accomplish that feat in Detroit.
“I think the thing that makes it the most meaningful for me was kind of the bad times,” Decker said at the time. “When we weren’t winning and nobody wanted to watch us play, and nobody thought we were a good team, nobody ever thought we were going to get it right and get it going in the right direction. But that’s just one of those instances where you just keep showing up, and you keep putting the work in, because the Lions are going to play football on Sunday whether I’m out there or not. And it was important to me, and it’s been important to me to be a part of that, because I feel like that’s what I was brought here for. I feel like I was brought here to try and be a piece to help the team win, and it took a long time, man.”
It took a long time, but it has finally happened. The Lions won 14 games during their march to the NFC Championship game this past season, and Decker was really good along the way once again. He allowed eight sacks overall, although four of them came while he played through an injury in Chicago. He allowed just one sack in seven games the rest of the way, and none at all on 121 pass blocks in the playoffs.
Decker, 30, remains one of the most reliable left tackles in the league. Paired with the best right tackle in the game on the other side of the field, plus an All-Pro at center in Frank Ragnow, the Lions have one of the league’s elite offensive lines, a luxury they flexed while finishing among the top-five offenses in both the running and passing games this past season.
But in a salary-cap league, no one can keep everybody, and general manager Brad Holmes has some difficult decisions to sort out about the future of the offense. It will take more than $45 million annually to extend Goff, while St. Brown will be looking for a deal that could exceed $20 million. Detroit also has to figure out what to do at guard, where all three of its top players can hit free agency in March.
And then there’s the matter of Penei Sewell, a 23-year-old superstar who was just named first-team All-Pro and finished as the No. 1 offensive tackle in the league according to Pro Football Focus. He still has another year left on his deal, plus a club option that will eventually be picked up for 2025, but you have to figure a long-term deal will be in everyone’s interest before the start of that season.
With that kind of money expected to be tied up at offensive tackle, plus Ragnow entering the second year of his market-setting contract at center, not to mention the uncertainty at guard, it remains unclear where Decker fits into the financial picture heading into the final year of his deal.
Asked how he’d feel about playing on a contract year next season, Decker said: “I don’t know. There are a lot of moving parts with all that stuff. I’ve been super fortunate to get a big second contract here. Would I love to have a third one? Of course. But ultimately, long term, I do want to be here, and however that pans out is to be determined. So, I mean, hopefully it’ll be a non-issue, and I’ll still be playing here at 35 years old. But so far, (talks have) just been really surface level. There’s a lot of moving parts, and I’m fine with that at this point.”
Decker said no serious contract talks have taken place, but he’s hopeful he’ll have a better idea of where his situation stands in the weeks ahead.
“It’s something that’s on my radar, and I’m sure it’s on their radar,” Decker said. “Maybe in a couple weeks, we’ll find out more.”
Either way, Decker wants it to be known: His desire is to remain in Detroit forever.
“Most players don’t get to spend their whole career with one franchise,” he said. “But that’s something that’s meaningful to me. I know I was a first-round pick, but in my mind, they took a chance on me, and I just want to keep delivering on that. I mean when you are somewhere for so long, and you see all the different teammates and coaches, you just become ingrained in the community. I don’t even want to have to think about playing somewhere else, because it’d just be weird.
“I’ve grown up here. Coming out of college, I never had, like, actual responsibilities. Now I do. I’ve seen some good, I’ve seen a lot of bad, and you just develop your perspective on things. Definitely over the last three or four years, I’ve felt a lot more comfortable to where it’s like, OK, I’ll speak my mind. When Patricia was here, he didn’t want that. But Dan (Campbell’s) much more, like, you can have your personality and you can have your opinions and stuff like that. That’s fine, as long as you’re not saying some crazy, made-up (expletive). I think that’s one thing that I appreciate about him. If you have an opinion on the game plan, and you give that opinion, it’s received, it’s not just listened to. I like that. I don’t want to go anywhere else.”
