New Contracts Haven’t Changed the Lions’ Core Players

Plus, thoughts on trading Davante Adams, Justin Fields keeping his starting job all season and more from around the league.

Goff is one of several Lions who was rewarded with a big contract this offseason. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

It’s already Week 5 of the NFL regular season and we’ve got Tuesday notes coming at you …

• The reclamation-project quarterback has become a 2024 story line, highlighted by the job Sam Darnold’s done in Minnesota, and what Baker Mayfield and Geno Smith continue to do in Tampa Bay and Seattle, respectively.

It’s almost enough to make you forget that Jared Goff is in that category, too.

The Detroit Lions’ quarterback gave us all an emphatic reminder Monday, going a historic 18-of-18 for 292 yards and two touchdowns (somehow, his 155.8 passer rating wasn’t a perfect 158.3) in piloting the home team’s prime-time win over the Seattle Seahawks. He hit seven different receivers. He helped continue the surge of 2022 first-rounder Jameson Williams, who’s averaging 22.2 yards per catch and is pacing toward his first 1,000-yard season.

You could almost forget he was one of a number of guys who got paid this offseason, joining Amon-Ra St. Brown and Penei Sewell among those who got locked up in Detroit. But I didn’t, and watching him last night made me recall talking to him this summer on the changing dynamic the team was facing in going from the hunter to the hunted—and how complacency can sometimes contribute to slipping when you’re everyone’s big game.

Goff swore to me he wasn’t worried about it. Mostly because of what he knew about the guys around him.

“They haven’t changed a bit at all,” Goff said this summer. “It was like nothing happened, when it happened in April. Those guys are as solid and steady as anybody in the league. I’m proud to be their teammate. They’re frickin’ incredible, and they haven’t changed a bit. I don’t think about that at all. If anything, Saint said it one time, if anything it makes him want to go harder. Prove them right. Go win a Super Bowl for this city.

“They’ve rewarded him, rewarded me and some other teammates with some money. Let’s go make them feel like they made the best decision they ever made.”

The Lions have made a lot of good ones, and as for taking everyone’s best shot … they’re 3–1, with the one blemish being a close loss to a very good Tampa Bay Buccaneers team.

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• Davante Adams didn’t do much to douse perception that the Las Vegas Raiders will trade him this season, saying to FanDuel’s Kay Adams on Tuesday, “All I can control is the next thing that I’m on to,” when asked about the idea he may have played his last game for the team.

Adams missed Sunday’s win over the Cleveland Browns with a hamstring issue, but, I’m told, was at the team facility all day Monday.

In the three games he’s played this year, he has 18 catches for 209 yards and a touchdown and, even at 31 years old (32 in December), he has trade value. The other thing that could motivate the Raiders to really look at the idea of moving their star receiver is that his contract sets up in a way that would make it tough to keep him past this season. He’s making $17.5 million this year. That number jumps to $36.25 million in both 2025 and ’26.

Again, Adams is really, really good. But the money for the next two years isn’t guaranteed, and it’s easy to see where the Raiders might look at offloading that money after the year as GM Tom Telesco and coach Antonio Pierce reshape the roster. So if you’re the Raiders, and you don’t think Adams will be around in 2025 anyway, trading him now would make some sense.

Stay tuned.

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Taylor has experience rallying his team after a slow start. / Denny Medley-Imagn Images

• It seemed to the rest of us like the Cincinnati Bengals were in dire straits at 0–3—and under a ton of pressure going into Charlotte to play the Carolina Panthers on Sunday.

The reality that Cincinnati coach Zac Taylor saw was different from that. Given their unfortunate starts of the past few years, Bengals veterans have had some practice at confronting a situation like that one. As such, no one doubted the ship was getting turned.

“You can tell when the team’s put in the work and they’re focused,” Taylor told me. “We’re getting that out of practice. And there’s also that looseness where you might show up and watch this practice and might think we’re 3–0, just the way the guys carry themselves, and that’s a good thing. We don’t have guys that are uptight and wearing the losses, letting it affect how they work. It’s guys that know, Hey, we just got to step up and make one more play than the other team because that’s all it’s come down to.

“And so that put me in a good frame of mind coming into this game, watching those guys work this week.”

At 1–3, now they can get on with the rest of their season.

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• The Miami Dolphins have been waiting for more clarity on Tua Tagovailoa’s timeline, but you have to wonder whether the past two weeks might push the team to do something at the quarterback position.

Skylar Thompson and Tim Boyle weren’t good in Week 3, and Tyler “Snoop” Huntley wasn’t much better in Week 4, and this, really, is the value of being well-stocked at quarterback. A backup probably isn’t going to save your season. But having a good one can keep you afloat if you lose your starter for a week or two. Miami is now 0–2 without Tagovailoa. If they can’t beat the New England Patriots or Indianapolis Colts in their next two games, the Dolphins would be 1–5 through six games.

At that point, Tagovailoa would be eligible to return, but the Dolphins would need to go 8–3 the rest of the way just to get over .500, and 10–1 to get back to the 11–6 mark they posted last year. I’m not saying Tagovailoa will be ready at that point. I’m also not presuming losses to a shaky Patriots team or a so-so Colts team. But it’s fair to say Miami has an uphill battle that it wouldn’t have if the team still had, say, Mike White on the roster.

Bottom line: There’d be real value in just gutting out a split of those four games, and keeping your goals for 2024 alive. We’ll see whether the Dolphins can with Huntley or whoever else at QB.

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• The KJ Henry addition signals where the Cowboys are at the edge spots, with both Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence down for a while. It won’t be easy to replace those two in the short term, and one guy they really could use more from is second-round pick Marshawn Kneeland. The Western Michigan product flashed in camp, but saw his snaps cut from Week 1 to Weeks 2 and 3, as Mike Zimmer shortened the D-line rotation.

Henry’s snaps ticked up in Week 4, with the injuries, and his ability to grow up fast should be a good bellwether on how capable Dallas is of managing its newfound problem. It also wouldn’t be surprising to see Zimmer start to dial up more pressure.

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Fields won his first three games with the Steelers before a loss in Week 4. / Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

• The Pittsburgh Steelers will be on the other end of that equation Sunday, and likely with Justin Fields at quarterback again. Mike Tomlin said Tuesday that he’s expecting more work from Russell Wilson in practice this week, as his calf gets healthier, but that the team is preparing for Fields to start again.

And at this point, I almost feel like Wilson getting the job back full-time would be a bigger surprise than that not happening. We’ve been over this, and the particulars of Fields’s improvement, over the past few weeks. More of it came as Fields led the Steelers back from the dead in Indy on Sunday. Just as important, the locker room and much of the staff is behind Fields. Which is why, again, I’d be surprised if Fields doesn’t finish 2024 as the starter.

Whether Wilson gets a chance to start again, and fight for the job on the game field, remains to be seen. But it sure feels like a lot of folks there feel like the team should be beyond that by now.

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• It’s a big game for the Jacksonville Jaguars this week. After all the noise of the weekend, a loss to the Colts on Sunday would put Jacksonville at 0–5, going to London, where ownership has invested a lot in building a fan base. Then they’ll get the Chicago Bears and Patriots in consecutive weeks over there, and there’d be a lot of pressure on those in charge to win those—for obvious reasons.

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• I’d also applaud the Houston Texans for gutting it out Sunday against the desperate Jaguars. On both sides of the ball, the Vikings challenged Houston’s schemes in Week 3. I think there was a lot to be taken from it, for DeMeco Ryans and his staff. It looks to me like they’ve already taken the lessons Minnesota gave them, which is a good sign for where they’ll go from here.

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• Teams were given data from the league earlier this year that showed teams that didn’t callous their players in training camp had higher injury rates over the course of the season—it basically said you’ll be healthier in camp by lightening the players’ summer load, but that’ll cost you down the line. Early returns will be interesting on that, seeing where a lot of teams hardened their camp plans this year (with longer practices and more contact), as a result of that data.

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• It’ll be interesting to see, based on how he’s playing, whether the Seahawks make a bid to extend Geno Smith soon. His contract will be up after the 2025 season.