Should the Detroit Lions use the franchise tag on Ziggy Ansah?
By Josh Trevino
With free-agency set to begin soon the Detroit Lions need to make a decision on their injury-prone star. Should they use the franchise tag or let him walk?
Often in sports we see athletes come into the league with so much promise and potential. They capture our hearts as they evolve into key components to our favorite teams, until suddenly an injury sidelines them.
It’s possible to comeback strong from injury, we’ve seen it happen. But for others, it can be very difficult to get back to that dominating player they once were. Such is true for Detroit Lions defensive end Ziggy Ansah.
Ansah was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 2013 as the fifth overall pick. After two promising years of development, he became a breakout star in 2015. Ansah terrorized opposing quarterbacks, recording 14.5 sacks, finishing third in the league. After the departure of Ndamukong Suh the year before, Ziggy appeared to be the Motor City’s next defensive superstar.
That was until week 2 of the 2016 season during the Lions home opener against the Tennessee Titans. Ansah suffered a high-ankle sprain that would plague him for the rest of the 2016 season. He finished up the year with only two sacks and just 21 total tackles.
After missing all of training camp with a knee injury, Ansah made his season debut at the Lions 2017 home opener against the Arizona Cardinals. But it wasn’t until week 2 when the Lions traveled to New York to take on the football Giants that Ziggy made his resurgence and showed a glimpse of the dominating player he was two seasons before. He recorded three sacks, as well as a forced a fumble.
Injury plagued Ansah yet again this past season but you wouldn’t be able to tell by checking his 2017 season stats. He recorded 12 total sacks – six of which came in the final two games of the season.
Ansah is set to become a free agent this offseason which wields the question, should the Lions use the franchise tag on him? It would cost Detroit somewhere in the $17M area to keep Ansah
around for another year with the franchise tag. The Lions have about $45M in cap space, and although Ziggy is a phenomenal player, him being injury-prone is a liability. So the answer to my earlier question is simple, no. The Lions should not franchise tag Ziggy Ansah.
With all that cap space general manager Bob Quinn could do some major damage this offseason in free agency. Not to mention that the draft is loaded with defensive talent. It’s likely if the Lions let Ziggy walk, they would use their first two picks for adding to the defense.
It will be tough to watch Ziggy leave Detroit, the city loved him. The fact is, he’s too injury prone and the Lions defense has too many holes that need to be filled. Instead of spending all that money on one player, Quinn can add multiple defensive free agents and work to bring in more talent to the Motor City.
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It’ll be tough to watch him go because we’ve all been waiting to see that 2015 Ziggy back on the field. And we’ve seen glimpses, games where he showed-out gave us hope. But the truth is, Ziggy’s future is 50/50, it’s tough to predict injuries. And although I wish him the best and nothing but success, spending $17M in 2018 with hopes that Ansah will be able to stay healthy is just too risky.