For much of the past six months, tight end Eric Ebron has been mentioned in trade talks. It happened around the 2017 trade deadline and again over the past week, as the new league year was set to begin.

And now, less than an hour before the new league year started, the Ebron era with the Detroit Lions ended. The Lions released the former first-round pick -- perhaps one of the most derided picks in recent franchise history -- after being unable to find someone to take him with an $8.25 million salary in 2018.

It was a four-year marriage that never really seemed to get going. While the money seems to be the reason why the Lions moved on from Ebron, it was time for a new start for both the tight end and the franchise at this point.

The criticism started from the night he was drafted, when he was taken as the No. 10 overall pick in the 2014 draft, even though Detroit had capable tight ends on the roster. If anything, the Lions had a player similar to him at the time -- Brandon Pettigrew, a pass-catching tight end who struggled with drops. And that's what Ebron became far too often in his Lions career: a pass-catching tight end who could make a spectacular play, but all too often had issues with drops.

He was viewed as a luxury pick at the time, especially with the Lions needing help on the offensive and defensive lines and in the secondary. Yet the Lions took a tight end -- one who had his struggles catching the ball.

Six of the seven players picked directly after Ebron have all ended up making at least one Pro Bowl. They were positions of need, too: offensive line (Taylor Lewan, Zack Martin); linebacker (Ryan Shazier); receiver (Odell Beckham Jr.); and most notably, defensive line, as Aaron Donald has become one of the NFL's top players.

Detroit could have used all of them, and all of them progressed at a better rate than Ebron.

He hit his low point in 2017 when he was booed almost every time he was shown on the big screen or touched the ball in a nationally televised game against Pittsburgh in Week 9, the game before the trade deadline. His relationship with the Lions' fan base was always fickle at best. Some didn't like him from the start because of where he was drafted and then how he produced (or didn't produce). Others were irked by some things he would say. Ebron was often refreshingly honest in what he was thinking, and that could sometimes rub people the wrong way.

That showed after the game against the Steelers, when Ebron spoke openly about his future and not knowing what would happen. He still had the confidence he often has had -- but also was living in a life of the unknown. It's a place he never really left, even after the trade deadline came and went.

In January, he said he honestly had no idea whether his future would be in Detroit.

"I wish I had a better understanding," Ebron told ESPN. "But I don’t know."

That continued all the way up until Wednesday, when he officially learned about his immediate future and that it wouldn't be with the Lions.

Now Ebron gets to start anew somewhere else, because he'll certainly have a market in free agency. He showed enough during the final two months of last season -- he finally started to play like a potential top-10 tight end with consistency -- that a team will take a chance on him. Since Week 9 of last year, he had 38 catches for 414 yards, both numbers in the top five at his position over that span.

Even though he was often criticized, he actually improved almost every year before taking a small dip in 2017. He had fewer drops. He developed trust with quarterback Matthew Stafford.

It just wasn't enough, perhaps a bit of too little, too late for the Lions to pay him $8.25 million next season.

Yet in cutting Ebron, the Lions now have a massive hole at tight end. The team's No. 2 tight end last year, Darren Fells, agreed to terms with the Browns on Wednesday morning, meaning the Lions have Michael Roberts and Hakeem Valles as the only tight ends on the roster in an offense where the tight end can play an important role.

It shoots up the list of needs for Detroit, joining defensive line, running back and offensive line as areas that need to be addressed as the Lions continue to remake their roster. Ebron had looked to potentially be a part of that at one point.

Now, he's just another on a long list of Lions first-round picks who didn't end up staying in Detroit for more than one contract.