The 2020 season has been a lost campaign for Lions star receiver Kenny Golladay. The 27-year-old has played in just five games this season and has been sidelined since Week 8 due to a hip injury. He's already been ruled out for Sunday's Week 15 matchup with the Tennessee Titans and with the Lions at 5-8 with just three more games to play in the regular season, there does seem to be a logical case to simply shut Golladay down.
That decision, however, carries a bit more weight than simply determining if a player should continue on and try to play at some point this season. With Golladay set to become an unrestricted free agent, the decision to shut him down for 2020 could effectively end his career with the Lions. That said, the receiver is hoping to remain in Detroit, despite his future currently uncertain.
"I want to be here, like the city, like what's going on," Golladay said Friday, via the Detroit Free Press.
When asked further about his desire to remain a member of the Lions, Golladay noted that he wants to remain loyal to the team that brought him into the NFL.
"They believed in me," he said. "And say, if a contract, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, then I'll go somewhere else and ball out and play. But like I say, I'm a loyal person and of course I want to be here. I started my career here."
When healthy, Golladay is looked at as one of the better receivers that the NFL has to offer. He led the league in touchdown receptions in 2019 and was coming into 2020 with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons on his résumé. Prior to suffering a hip injury against Indy in Week 8, Golladay seemed well on his way towards another strong season. In the four healthy games he played, he caught 20 of his 28 targets for 338 yards and two touchdowns.
With head coach Matt Patricia and GM Bob Quinn fired and the process to replace them ongoing, the state of the Lions franchise is in flux. If they decide to press the button on a full reset, it may not make much sense for the organization to pay Golladay the amount of money he'll certainly garner on the open market. With that situation in mind, there still seems to be a likely scenario where the Pro Bowl receiver is playing elsewhere in 2021 despite his wishes to stay.
