Had he wanted to, Graham Glasgow could have tested the market. And he could have leveraged the Lions for another million or two. There would have been plenty of interest in the veteran free agent guard. But Glasgow said he told his agent the night before the legal tampering window opened in free agency, "I didn't even really want to wait and see (and) use other teams’ offers to maybe go back and try and get more money."
"I just wanted to get it done," Glasgow said.
Coming off arguably the best season of his career, Glasgow knew where he wanted to be. All he sought in a new contract was what he felt like he'd earned, which he voiced to the Lions after playing last season on a one-year, $2.75 million deal. They reciprocated by re-singing Glasgow to a three-year, $20 million deal with $8 million guaranteed, and securing a key piece of their elite offensive line.
"Last year was a big year for me," Glasgow said Wednesday. "You guys called it a prove-it deal deal, and it was. I said I proved it here before before and I want to prove it again, and that's what I did. And it's not like that doesn't apply still. I feel like there's still a lot to prove."
That goes for Glasgow, one of the best players at his position last season, per Pro Football Focus, after getting cut by the Broncos. It goes for the Lions offense, a top-five unit for the second year in a row. And it goes for the team as a whole, which won its division for the first time in 30 years and then came within 30 minutes of the Super Bowl.
"That was a big reason why I wanted to come back, because I feel like the prospect of us being an even better team than we were last year is really good," Glasgow said.
In other words, you can't end on a miss.
"I feel like when you have a really, really good season with a good team and then things don't end the way you want them to, you'd like to come back. You want to try and get another crack at it," Glasgow said. "I play video games: you don't want to end on a loss, right? You want to try and end on a win."
It won't be easy, not that Glasgow expects it to be. The Lions have quite the hole to fill at left guard after Jonah Jackson signed a three-year, $51 million deal with the Rams, weakening -- for now -- the strength of Detroit's team. Jackson was a road-grader for the Lions' vaunted ground game, an "amazing player," said Glasgow, whose "contract speaks for itself: A lot of other teams also think that Jonah is really good."
How the Lions replace Jackson becomes one of the main stories of the rest of the offseason.
"It just comes down to, we're going to have to work. We're going to get after it," Glasgow said. "We'll figure it out."
Even with his new deal, Glasgow stands to be a bargain for the Lions if he maintains his level of play from last season. He ranked sixth among guards, and fourth in run-blocking, among those who played at least 50 percent of their team's snaps, per PFF, powering a rushing attack that finished fifth in the NFL. And his $6.67 million salary, while more than double what he made last season, ranks just 28th at his position, per Spotrac. His $3.3 million cap hit next season ranks ... 45th.
In a robust market for interior offensive linemen, Glasgow, an eight-year vet who can also play center in a pinch, said that "everything worked out exactly how I wanted." Which is to say: he really didn't want much.
His first stint with the Lions ended in acrimony when the prior regime declined to even entertain the idea of bringing him back. Glasgow landed in Denver on a four-year, $44 million deal, but missed his old teammates in Detroit like Frank Ragnow and Taylor Decker. He returned to the Lions as an insurance piece and wound up making 15 sturdy starts in the trenches, plus three more in the playoffs. The season ended on a sour note in San Francisco -- and this time, Glasgow is sticking around.
"I feel like they put a lot of trust in me. And I feel like they did good by me and I wanted to come back and do as good as I can by them," he said.