After leaving the Lions, Taylor Decker would feel dirty playing for the Bears or Packers

Longtime Lions left tackle Taylor Decker asked for and received his release this offseason after the team wanted him to take a pay cut. But while Decker is done as a Lion, he wouldn't want to be a rival of the Lions.

That's the word from Justin Rogers, who interviewed Decker and wrote about him for DetroitFootball.net and learned that Decker wouldn't want to play for the Bears or Packers.

He wants to play for a winner. Yet he's kind of thinking about, Is it cheap to go win somewhere else after you've invested all your energy emotionally and physically into one franchise?'" Rogers said on the Lions Collective podcast. I will tell you that he's pretty anti-playing for the Bears or Packers. That's the Lions background in him. I know Ben Johnson did it and that was the right situation for him, but Taylor feels kind of dirty about the idea. It just isn't interesting to him. I could see him joining a team mid-season, the further he gets away from football and games being played, injuries happening and the right offer occurs. I could also see him not playing."

Decker didn't appreciate how the Lions approached him this offseason, asking him to take less money after he had been loyal to the team and spent a decade playing for them. But he still very much considers himself a Lion.

"Taylor Decker wants to be remembered as a Lion, to the point where he wants back in the fold," Rogers said. "Wherever this season may go, whether he plays for someone else or doesn't, he wants to come here, sign the one-day contract, retire a Lion."

Decker will be warmly received by Lions fans whenever he does return to Detroit, and not wanting to play for a rival is one of the things Lions fans love about him.