Bob Quinn, Detroit Lions taking their time with personnel decisions

For the Detroit Lions, it has been the offseason for nearly a month now, as the team transitions from the 2019 season to 2020. With a must-win season ahead, the Lions itinerary has been full since the minute they walked off Ford Field following their final loss of the season. There have been coaching searches, coaching resignations, the East-West Shrine Bowl and this week: the big Senior Bowl.

And for that reason, and some others, the Lions haven’t really begun their collective talent evaluation of their own roster, according to general manager Bob Quinn.

“We regrouped in Detroit last week to get ready for this game, and actually when we get back in Detroit, that’s the first time we’re going to sit down as a coaching and personnel staff together and go through our season, our players and kind of set the course for the rest of the offseason,” Quinn said on an NFL Network panel during Wednesday’s Senior Bowl practices.

This offseason is a drastically important one for the Lions. Aside from the near-ultimatum from ownership to create a playoff-contending team in 2020, Detroit has some tough roster decisions to make. Do they give Graham Glasgow a costly extension? What do they do if Damon Harrison Sr. retires? How should they approach the backup quarterback situation after another back injury to Matthew Stafford? What about extending Taylor Decker and Kenny Golladay or Jarrad Davis’ fifth-year option?

But for Quinn and head coach Matt Patricia, it was important to create some distance between the season and the evaluation process to get the emotions of a stressful season out of the equation.

“You never want to make rash decisions about players the week after the season, because emotions are high about how the season ended,” Quinn said. “So, I think it’s good to sit back, take some time, evaluate everything and then we get into February and then we can start to really fine-tune the free agency part of it and get ready for the Combine.”

So what does this mean for the Lions? Well, it could possibly mean the writing isn’t necessarily on the wall for someone like Graham Glasgow, who clearly expects to hit free agency. It also means we could start seeing the team re-sign some of their pending free agents as early as the first week in February.

Either way, with the numerous questions facing this franchise and their offseason plan, we may start getting some answers next month.