Thursday open thread: Should the Detroit Lions re-sign anyone?

Time is running low for the Detroit Lions and all 31 other teams in the NFL. Free agency is a mere two weeks away, and that means rosters are about to look a whole lot different.

But before we even get there, each team has some serious decisions to face. We’ve already heard from a few other teams who have publicly said they won’t be renewing contracts (the Eagles with Nick Foles, for example), and some have already started to re-sign some players.

The Detroit Lions, on the other hand, have remained pretty quiet. Though they released a few players a couple weeks ago, and re-signed a few guys in Don Muhlbach, Steve Longa and Mitchell Loewen, the bigger decisions facing this roster remain unsolved.

So today’s Question of the Day is:

Should the Detroit Lions re-sign any of their pending free agents?

My answer: First, let’s take a look at a list of the players whose fate has yet to be determined:

QB Matt Cassel
RB LeGarrette Blount
FB Nick Bellore
RB Zach Zenner
TE Luke Willson
TE Levine Toilolo
WR TJ Jones
OT Andrew Donnal
DE Ezekiel Ansah
DT Ricky Jean Francois
DE Eli Harold
LB Kelvin Sheppard
CB Marcus Cooper
CB DeShawn Shead
DE Romeo Okwara (RFA)
DE Kerry Hyder (RFA)
S Charles Washington (ERFA)

That’s not exactly a list of players this team absolutely needs to succeed. That being said, Romeo Okwara and Zach Zenner appear to be the most appealing re-signs. Zenner is nice depth, and the team clearly likes him given that they brought him back from IR last year and basically chose him over Ameer Abdullah. Okwara wasn’t great and probably shouldn’t be a starter, but it’s clear he’s comfortable in this defensive scheme and can be productive as a rotational edge.

Outside of that, I could really see Detroit moving on from just about everyone else. Kellie made a solid case for keeping Ricky Jean Francois around next season, but he’s also far from necessary at age 32. Otherwise... well, I guess you need a backup quarterback to contend with Connor Cook, so it’s certainly possible Detroit brings back Matt Cassel.

Overall, though, I think we should probably expect this team to make some pretty significant changes to the bottom third of this roster, and that includes moving on from a lot of these names.

Your turn.