5 free agent tight ends the Detroit Lions should target

1. Evan Engram

2022 Team: Jacksonville Jaguars

If the Lions are going to dive into the deeper end of the tight end free agent market, Engram should be the No. 1 guy until further notice. After delivering a mix of promise and disappointment over five seasons with the New York Giants, the former first-round pick appears to have found a home with the Jaguars in 2022.

There were ups and downs in production over the course of the season, but  Engram finished with career-highs in catches (73) and yards (766) while playing all 17 games. He was also a little bit clutch, with 26 catches for 337 yards and two touchdowns from Week 14-16 when the Jaguars had to keep stacking wins on their way to winning the AFC South. He had 93 yards and a touchdown in the playoff win over the Los Angeles Chargers.

Engram and the Jaguars are saying all the right things about wanting to stay together, and the team does hold the trump card of the franchise tag if a multi-term agreement isn’t reached right away.

At the NFL Combine on Wednesday, via Cameron Wolfe of NFL Network, here’s what Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke had to say about Engram.

"I talked with Trent Baalke a few minutes ago and he said, ‘Evan Engram will be on this football team in some capacity,’” Wolfe said Tuesday. “They want to get a long-term deal done, but they have that franchise tag as a tool if it lingers. They’ve started early parts of those conversations with Evan Engram. He had a career best year in that offense. Doug Pederson raved about him. Trevor Lawrence raved about him.”"

Unless the Jaguars render everything moot by tagging Engram before the March 7 deadline or agreeing to a deal with him in the coming days/weeks, which they have not done as of this writing, there will be multiple other teams interested in him. With their highest offensive ceiling in mind, the Lions should be somewhere in that mix.