Jeremy Maclin
Jeremy Maclin was a surprising cut by the Kansas City Chiefs on Friday and should be a popular option for teams in need of a veteran wide receiver.
(AP Photo)
DETROIT -- The first major surprise post-draft cut hit the NFL on Friday when the Kansas City Chiefs parted with Jeremy Maclin.
A team hungry for the playoffs cut a 29-year-old wide receiver who was by far their most talented and developed option, all to save $10 million.
Maclin is coming off a down year with just 536 yards and two touchdowns while missing four games with a nagging groin injury, but he'll have a market. Wide receivers younger than 30 with more than 6,000 career yards just don't come available this time of the year.
He's an option who could possibly intrigue the Lions. They had success with this kind of move a year ago.
Anquan Boldin was a 35-year-old free agent last summer, and the Lions scooped him up and got their receiving touchdowns leader out of it with Calvin Johnson retired. Boldin's departure this offseason created another void to fill, and so the Lions sought out red-zone specialists in the draft in third-round Northern Illinois receiver Kenny Golladay and fourth-round Toledo tight end Michael Roberts.
Golladay has impressed in the very early stages of organized training activities, his 6-foot-4-inch, 218-pound presence serving as a focal point of team drills run at the goal line. But those plays take place in shorts, and they don't come with the coverage disguises that test route running, a concern for Golladay entering the draft.
The Lions view him as a future red-zone target for Stafford to complement the downfield play of Marvin Jones and the yards-after-catch game of Golden Tate. Filling that role as a rookie will be difficult, as NFL route trees continue to intensify the transition from college offenses, particularly those as simplistic as Golladay's.
The Lions offseason has primarily been about building around Stafford as he's set to iron out a new contract that could exceed $100 million. They threw $9.5 million salaries at guard T.J. Lang and tackle Rick Wagner to keep him better protected, but they were hamstrung to improve his targets with Jones and Tate set to play this season on cap hits of more than $8 million.
After the draft had three wide receivers taken in the first 10 picks, the chances of finding an affordable No. 1 target seemed to disappear for Detroit. That is, perhaps, until Friday. At his best, Maclin has fought through double coverage for YAC as a No. 1 threat the past three seasons, topping out at 1,318 yards and 10 touchdowns on 15.5 yards per catch with the Eagles in 2014.
At his worst, he's been hobbled, out-of-sync with Alex Smith and suffering some rare concentration drops. But that's with Alex Smith.
Playing in a more aggressive offense with a strong-armed quarterback in Stafford could unleash more of the best in Maclin, though making it happen could be far from easy. He won't get $10 million again, but he'll get paid.
Teams can shift their cap space around a four-year checkbook, and more than two-thirds of them have more to spend than the Lions' total of just more than $8.5 million, according to OverTheCap.com. Waiving a player on a high cap hit can create some flexibility, but it could also force another hole on the roster. A release of defensive tackle Haloti Ngata or linebacker Tahir Whitehead, for example, could pose that issue.
At 6 feet tall and 198 pounds, Maclin can be many things as a wide receiver, but a dominant goal-line force he is not. It's an adequate part of his game but only secondary to the big plays he generates through speed.
That's not to say the Lions wouldn't love them some more of those after last year's group struggled to separate from press-man coverage down the stretch. Maclin on the opposite side of Jones with Tate in the slot and Eric Ebron at split tight end would make for an exciting collection of targets for Stafford to work with now that he'll have more time to throw.
It'd place some limitations on the two-back and two-tight end sets the Lions had been planning to employ. But no quarterback will complain about having too much to work with, and certainly not one still in search of his first playoff win.
It'd just have to come at a reasonable price and not at the end of a bidding war.