Taylor Decker was hoping and expecting to sign an extension with the Lions this summer, but hadn't heard from his agents in a couple months. When they called him the other day, "They were like, ‘Ugh, we gotta talk to you you about this bull---," Decker said Wednesday on 97.1 The Ticket.
"And I was like, ‘C’mon man, what is it?'"
"They go, 'Just kidding, we got your deal done!'" Decker said.
The Lions' longest-tenured player, Decker signed a three-year, $60 million extension with the team on Monday. It keeps the standout left tackle in Detroit through 2027.
"It just feels really good to get a third contract from a team, to be able to stay in a city I love and play with teammates I care about," Decker said. "Just pretty incredible. And it speaks volumes to the people who have supported me, my trainers, my coaches, and especially my wife. You can’t do great things as a man without a great woman."
Decker, who has a two-year old daughter with his wife Kyndra and a boy on the way, is entering his ninth season with the Lions. His extension takes him closer to fulfilling his goal of spending his entire career with the same team. Hopeful of getting a deal done ahead of his contract season, Decker said he went to Dan Campbell this spring to get an update on negotiations "straight from the horse's mouth."
"I knew this is where I wanted to be," he said. "I don’t want to play anywhere else. I want to stay in Detroit. I just went to Dan personally, because you hear things from your agent and they’re talking to the salary cap guy and the front office, stuff like that, and I was like, I just want to talk to Dan. I want to know -- I’m not here to talk numbers or X’s and O’s -- from a football standpoint, where are we at? He gave me the information and I was happy with that, and that’s pretty much how it played out."
For Decker, it was proof that Campbell meant what he said when he told his players at the end of his first season in Detroit, "We will communicate with your agents, but if you have a problem and you want to talk about it, my phone is always on, my door is always open. Come talk to me."
Once Decker knew that he and the Lions were on the same page, "it allowed me to just focus on getting ready for camp, showing up and doing what I have to do, and everything else will take care of itself."
That it did. So when Campbell and the Lions confirmed Decker's extension, "I told them I have a lot of respect for them for sticking to their word," Decker said, "because there are a lot of variables that can change in this business."