Upon coming back to the Detroit Lions in March of 2023, Graham Glasgow made it clear coming back to play with his "buddies" Frank Ragnow and Taylor Decker was what he prioritized. He of course went on to have a great year, mostly playing right guard, increasing his value upon hitting the market again.
Reports pointing to a booming market for free agent guards (since clearly proven) set up how badly Glasgow wanted to come back to the Lions to be tested. No one would fault him for taking the most money he could get, and pursuing the kind of free agent deal he earned with his performance last season.
Of course the Lions re-signed Glasgow on the first day of free agency, before the negotiation window where his agent could have talked with other teams even officially opened. Of course it's worth wondering if other teams had made their interest known when it technically wasn't allowed, but the Lions clearly placed a priority on keeping Glasgow around.
Graham Glasgow wanted to be back with the Lions more than anything
Glasgow's re-signing was made official when the new league year started Wednesday afternoon, and he took the podium to talk to the media. As expected, he talked about his free agency process.
"I talked to my agent the night before the tampering period went about and you can always see that there's some interest from other teams even if you're not talking about money," Glasgow said Wednesday. "He told me kind of what they offered, and I said I didn't even really want to wait and see and use other teams offers to maybe go back and get extra. I kind of just wanted to get it done and have it be done."
"I kind of feel like they put a lot of trust in me and they did good by me and I wanted to come back and do as good as I can by them."
Glasgow probably could have leveraged other contract offers in talks with the Lions. But his agent told him what the Lions were offering (three years, $20 million, $8 million guaranteed; as we'd find out), and he chose to take it.
It's not a revelation that Glasgow's desire was to come back to Detroit. But it is interesting he ultimately had no desire to fully entertain the open market.