Cade Mays might've been one of the only "budget friendly" centers available to the Detroit Lions on the free agency market, but it already seems like he'll be a major improvement on their starting center play from 2025.
In fairness to Graham Glasgow, a natural guard who was thrown into the center position after the abrupt retirement of Frank Ragnow before the 2025 season, he was never comfortable swapping to such a key role on the Lions' offensive line. He allowed just one sack on Jared Goff on the year, but struggled to help establish the Lions' run game.
Mays is now the teams' starting center, having played 726 snaps at the position for the Carolina Panthers in 2025 and looking solid in that role. He allowed zero sacks on Bryce Young over that stretch, and just 11 pressures. However, he also had some trouble establishing the run with his blocking - but, he had been improving leading up to Carolina's postseason.
Mays simply has to be "good" for the Lions. Detroit is desperate for a line that's actually comfortable playing together and at their respective positions, and Mays is already a step up from Glasgow in that respect. If he can keep up his growth from the Panthers as he takes on this new job with the Lions, we'll see some major improvement from the line overall.
Mays has to be good, not great, to help Lions O-line
Mays' run-blocking numbers may not immediately jump off the page from 2025, but this post from Al Karsten of Pride of Detroit shows just how valuable he could be in the Lions' system, specifically:
Cade Mays led all 39 qualifying centers in 2024 with an 87.5 PFF Gap Blocking Grade (Frank Ragnow ranked 8th). However, only 32.7% of Mays’ run-blocking snaps came on gap concepts, which ranked 31st.
— Al Karsten (@FootballGuy_Al) March 11, 2026
That same season, Jahmyr Gibbs ranked among the NFL’s best RBs on Man/Duo runs:…
Detroit loves to utilize a heavy gap scheme to open up their run game, and so does new offensive coordinator Drew Petzing. Mays fits like a glove in that respect, especially if he can replicate these 2024 numbers while with the Lions. They'll also be running that scheme a lot more heavily, presumably, than Carolina was when they had Mays.
Gibbs is also a huge factor here. Carolina had solid running back depth in Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard in 2025, but were only averaging 116.3 rushing yards per game that year, and just 110.5 per game in the season prior.
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Gibbs, alone, could be rushing for an average of 83.1 per game - which was what he sat at for 2024 - and as Karsten noted above, he could be towards the top of the league in man/duo runs with Mays helping up front. Helping, it should be noted, even better than veteran Ragnow was in 2024.
So, fans shouldn't be too worried about Mays' effectiveness supporting the run in 2025, as Carolina might not have been utilizing him to his full potential. Inserting him into the Lions' offensive scheme which features heavy gap running, and with Gibbs in tow, should unlock him. And, it should subsequently unlock Detroit's entire offensive line again.
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