Glover Quin: I tried to get Detroit Lions to release me last offseason

Glover Quin was so sure that his time in Detroit was coming to an end after the Lions hired Matt Patricia that the Pro Bowl safety said in a new podcast that he actually tried to get the team to release him last offseason.

"I actually tried to get out of my contract going into the season," Quin said in an episode of The Pride Podcast posted Thursday. "Cause I just, like I said, I knew it was going to get to this point. I could see it. I knew it was going to happen. I understand the business of football and I knew we were going to get to this point so I was just trying to stop it before it even got started."

Quin, one of the NFL's leading ironmen with 148 consecutive starts, was released by the Lions last Friday after six seasons with the team.

He made his only Pro Bowl and led the NFL in interceptions in 2014, but lost playing time last season to rookie third-round pick Tracy Walker and was set to count nearly $8 million against the salary cap next season.

The Lions freed up $6.25 million in cap room with Quin's release.

"It wasn’t necessarily (I was) considering retirement, although I did think about it a little bit cause I had some other things going on," Quin said. "But I was really contemplating, like, whether I wanted to come back to Detroit cause I knew that with the new coaches, with all that stuff, I knew they were going in a different direction. And for the last few years, the way things had been, the way the organization was, the way it kind of had fit, I kind of had felt like, 'OK, boom, they just got rid of Coach (Jim) Caldwell, they’re (about) to go in a totally different direction. I really don’t want to have to start over again in another different direction in Detroit.' I kind of felt like, ‘OK, I’ve done what I can do. They’re going to start with a new coach, let them start fresh with another player and let me go.’"

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Quin, who started all 96 of his games with the Lions and was considered one of the team's most authoritative voices in the locker room, stayed away from the team during offseason workouts last year while attending to family matters in Houston.

He said he asked for his release with the intention of catching on with his hometown Texans, though he knew the Lions wouldn't grant his request once they drafted Walker.

"I knew that they wasn’t going to do that last year, but for me as a person, I just didn’t want to go into the year not even asking the question to see," Quin said. "It was kind of this thing where if I ask them and they tell me no, OK, that’s cool. But what if they would have told me yeah? What if they would have felt the same way? 'OK, well, yeah, we’re going to go in a different direction. If you don’t want to be a part of it, we’ll give you an opportunity to move on. We’ve got some clauses, we can get out of the contract,' all that good stuff. What if they would have said that?

"So for me it was kind of just like, 'OK, I know they’re not going to do it, but I at least have to ask just to feel good with myself.' But when they drafted Tracy, I knew that’s what they would want (me to help groom him). This was Quandre’s first year at safety, so just having somebody that can help and guide the way and get those guys ready, give them a year to develop, I knew that would be what they wanted so I was cool with it."

Quin said the Lions have a solid defensive system under Patricia but that "I just didn’t fit it very well."

He predicted the team will be fine with Walker and Quandre Diggs at safety, and said he wasn't surprised at all when general manager Bob Quinn called last Friday to tell him the team was moving on.

"I’m sitting on the couch and then all of a sudden I see Bob Quinn shows up on my phone, I'm like 'Oh, OK, here we go,'" Quin said. "So I answered it.and like I said, I knew what it was so it wasn’t like it was a surprise to me."

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As for his future, Quin said he's not sure yet if he'll play an 11th NFL season in 2019.

"I’ll see probably what happens, what opportunities may be out there," he said. "If it’s something that I feel like I want to do, something that I feel like may make sense for myself and my family I may entertain it, and if it’s not then I’ll call it a career. But I haven’t decided yet. I’m just kind of hanging out right now.

"It’s kind of funny cause I tried Starbucks today for the first time. I only had like a cinnamon shortbread Frappuccino, something like that. So I put it on my IG story and my trainer, he messaged me and he was like, hashtag sugar. And I sent it back, I was like hashtag unemployed. This is the first time in 10 years I’ve been unemployed so just kind of sitting back. I think Friday will be a week, so I’m just sitting back relaxing. I’m not rushing to any decisions right now."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.Read more on the Detroit Lions and sign up for our Lions newsletter.