5 wide receivers the Detroit Lions could trade for to replace DJ Chark

1. Michael Pittman

As the Colts enter a reset, with drafting a young quarterback in April on the table barring a pursuit of Lamar Jackson, the possibility they might consider trading Pittman has sort of surfaced. He is entering the final year of his rookie contact, as a second-round pick in 2020 out of USC, and despite some downright shoddy quarterback play look at what he’s done the last two seasons.

2021: 88 receptions (129 targets), 1,082 yards, six touchdowns
2021: 99 receptions (141 targets), 925 yards, four touchdowns; 70.2 percent catch rate (career-best)

Spotrac currently has Pittman’s market value at $18.4 million per year (four-year, $73.6 million deal). That simply might be money the Colts don’t want to pony up for him, and they’ll look to get some guaranteed draft capital instead.

Pittman is a big target (6-foot-4, 220-some pounds), he’s 25 years old and he was a college teammate of Amon-Ra St. Brown’s for two seasons (2018 and 2019). In the last of those two seasons, they combined for 178 receptions. In many respects, Pittman looks like a very nice fit for the Lions as a replacement and arguably a nice upgrade over Chark.

The Colts will probably say the right things about Pittman being a building block, not someone you get rid of, if talk of trading him ever prominently lands in questions from the media. But he’s definitely someone who should be on the radar of several teams, even peripherally to whatever extent, and the Lions belong among them.