4 options for the Detroit Lions to replace T.J. Hockenson in 2023

2. Evan Engram

After a up-and-down start this season (mostly down, honestly), Engram has gotten on a better track lately. Over his last four games he has 19 catches on 29 targets, with at least 55 yards in three of those.

Engram’s career, five seasons with the New York Giants before this one with the Jacksonville Jaguars, has been marked by underachievement. He has not topped 700 yards in a full season since his rookie season (2017), and he has cleared 50 catches in a full season just twice (2017 and 2020). For whatever it’s worth, he is on pace to clear both of those numbers this year with 32 receptions for 330 yards in eight games. That’s a 17-game pace of 68 catches for 701 yards.

Engram is playing this season in Jacksonville on a one-year, $9 million deal. Spotrac has his future market value a little above that right now, at $9.3 million on a prospective three-year deal.

From a Lions’ perspective, that $9.3 million number is right in line with what Hockenson’s fifth-year option (now off their books, of course) for next season is worth ($9.4 million). But signing Engram to a multi-year deal, say three years, at that average would come in cheaper than the deal Hockenson is in line to get for beyond 2023. And Engram will surely have to carry his current momentum through the rest of the season to get that $9 million per year.

As long as the price is right, and there’s no reason to think it won’t be, Engram should be somewhere on the Lions’ 2023 free agency radar.