It took until the second week of the proceedings to happen, but the Detroit Lions got one of the steals of 2024 NFL Free Agency when they signed guard Kevin Zeitler to a one-year, $6 million deal. He went on to have one of the best seasons of his long career, earning the third-best overall grade and the second-best run blocking grades among guards from Pro Football Focus.
Zeiter will turn 35 right before free agency starts (March 8), but there are no signs he's slowing down and the injuries that cost him two games this past season (including the playoffs) were not significant. Any speculation about retirement was put to bed by his wife Sarah referring to "Year 14" on social media after the Lions' playoff loss to the Commanders.
It's unlikely a team will go beyond two years in his next contract, but he is a practical lock to get toward $10 million per year. Spotrac has his projected market value at $9.2 million, with a projected one-year deal.
At his season-ending press conference, Lions general manager Brad Holmes praised Zeitler and talked about his upcoming free agency.
"I thought Zeitler did a good job this year,” Holmes said. “It’s different when you’re changing completely different schemes and kind of early on, he kind of had to get used to how we were doing things, but once he got adjusted into that, I thought he did a really good job. A player of that age, you’ve just got to have conversations with him. We had conversations on exit day and then we’ll just continue to have dialogue and just kind of see where it goes.”
A strong effort to bring Zeitler back is a no-brainer for the Lions, and it's very possible he'll want to come back on another one-year deal, and this time for below what he could get elsewhere. But as is the case with any free agent, he should see what else is out there on the open market. If he comes back to the Lions for less than other teams are offering, then that's his prerogative.
Here are four teams who could poach Zeitler from the Lions in free agency.