{"id":40693,"date":"2018-03-21T12:44:57","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T16:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnfl.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=40693"},"modified":"2018-03-21T12:44:57","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T16:44:57","slug":"detroit-lions-sign-luke-willson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2018\/03\/21\/detroit-lions-sign-luke-willson\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Lions Sign Tight End Luke Willson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/lions\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Detroit Lions<\/a> have signed tight end Luke Willson to a one year deal, the team announced Wednesday morning.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/caplannfl\/status\/976450768881487872\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">According to ESPN&#8217;s Adam Caplan<\/a>, the deal is one year with $1.5 million guaranteed with the potential to reach over $2.5 million after incentives.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Lions?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Lions<\/a> agreed to terms with TE Luke Willson for 1 season, $2.5m+ incentives.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adam Caplan (@caplannfl) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/caplannfl\/status\/976438037986062336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1><strong>Luke Willson Signing One-Year Deal With Detroit Lions<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Willson has spent all five of his years in the NFL with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/seahawks\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Seattle Seahawks<\/a>, primarily playing as a number two tight end on the depth chart. Over that time, Willson has compiled 89 receptions for 1,129 yards. He also has experience playing on Seattle&#8217;s special teams unit.<\/p>\n<h2>Detroit Desperate for Tight End Help<\/h2>\n<p>The move comes after the Lions cut former first-round pick <strong>Eric\u00a0Ebron<\/strong> last week before his 2018 salary of $8.5 million became guaranteed. Ebron had one year left on his rookie contract after the team picked up his fifth-year option last offseason.<\/p>\n<p>Cutting Ebron left the Lions with next to no depth on the roster. All of the tight ends on the roster prior to Willson&#8217;s signing had a combined four receptions for 46 yards, all of which came from rookie Michael Roberts last season.<\/p>\n<p>Willson, who grew up a Lions fan, comes home and brings with him much-needed experience to the Lions&#8217; tight ends group.<\/p>\n<h2>Willson Only a Temporary Fix<\/h2>\n<p>While Willson is well ahead of the NFL learning curve compared to the rest of the tight ends on the Lions&#8217; depth chart, he&#8217;s far from the end all be all answer for the Lions at tight end.<\/p>\n<p>Willson&#8217;s most productive receiving year came in 2014, in which he only had 362 receiving yards. He has yet to come close to matching that since.<\/p>\n<p>Willson&#8217;s contract says as much, as he&#8217;s only signed to one year deal &#8212; not to mention, at a rate <em>much<\/em> lower than number one tight ends have gone for this off-season. Expect to see the Lions add more help at the tight end position on days two or three of the draft.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"wAGJ9PMyRP5_QCnUs3_93Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/869023168\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'wAGJ9PMyRP5_QCnUs3_93Q',sig:'UtbpgylpcV0OsHaXSZ5YBZRgQEDz_DhfIGE0bDvI64o=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'869023168',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Detroit Lions have signed tight end Luke Willson to a one year deal, the team announced Wednesday morning.\u00a0According to ESPN&#8217;s Adam Caplan, the deal is one year with $1.5 million guaranteed with the potential to reach over $2.5 million after incentives. #Lions agreed to terms with TE Luke Willson for 1 season, $2.5m+ incentives. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2405,"featured_media":40706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,36],"tags":[43,797,2063,179],"class_list":["post-40693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lions","category-nfl-news","tag-detroit-lions","tag-eric-ebron","tag-luke-willson","tag-seattle-seahawks"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}