2025 Most likely Cap Casualties and Free Agent losses

NFL Detroit Lions
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The Lions are currently 5th best in Salary cap rankings. We have 40 players currently under contract heading into 2025. That means we need to sign 13 more to fill our active roster. The cap is expected to rise up to around 267 Mil. Which means the Lions have about 37 mil to sign those 13 players and to extend current players.

See link below to view every teams salary cap rankings.

Nate started a thread showing who are free agents are for 2025. See below.

I specifically want to talk about who we will likely lose and who we may cut to free up salary cap money.

Potential Big Cap Cuts could be.

JRM - Savings 3.6 mil - He’s turning 30 years old and when the Lions had a bunch of injuries at LBer we did not turn to JRM to start. That’s a lot of money going to a special teams player.

Amik Robinson - Savings 4.8 million. Personally I think we keep him but we could cut him to free up money to bring Davis Back or to go get another upgrade at CB.

DJ Reader - savings 8 Million - DJ has a 4 Mil roster bonus coming up soon so we will know this answer soon enough. He’s 31 and underperformed the expectations we had. With a new DC coming in the Lions could use this money to go another direction.

I highly doubt we cut anyone to be honest. I also do not think we will be big players in free agency. I suspect we will be more about keeping who we have.

Let’s assume we’re going to lose AG and we’ve already lost Ben. The new coordinators could be making some scheme changes and this means we could see more turnover on the roster. Especially on defense.

On offense this could play a part on what type of IOL we want and could effect who we target at OG.

On defense this could affect our CBs if we plan to play more zone for example. It could affect our LBers and DL as well.

Personally I doubt the new DC plays as much man coverage. So I’m guessing Davis will be our biggest cap casualty.

Players I think are more likely to lose.

Davis - He get an offer bigger than we want to spend.
Davenport - Smith means he’s out.
Mosely - availablity is too big a concern.
Comminsky - Saving the money for Levi.

50-50 - I think we want all 3 back if the money works out.
Patrick
Zeitler
Levi

75% or more likely back.

Barnes - Too important to let go
Muhammad - Cheap solid depth.
Skipper - We need him to report eligible.
Iffy - Cheap depth that brings some versatility.

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Some of the Lions FAs will likely attract interest from the outgoing coaches and Ben Johnson, Aaron Glenn and, perhaps, Hank Fraley want guys who are familiar with their systems and a culture fit.

Davis, Patrick, Zeitler, Levi O, Barnes, and Iffy all fall into that category.

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Wait, DJ Reader’s on this team?!

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JRM for 3 million is a steal. Amik for 4 million is a steal.
They aren’t getting cut or taking pay cuts.

Tim Patrick should definitely be back

Zeitler run it back for 1 more year. Mahogs could be LG next year.

I can definitely see the team approaching Glasgow to cut his 5.5 base salary down to save a few a million like we did Charles Harris & Romeo & Tracey Walker.

ZDarius… do we pick up his option?

CD3 is the interesting one… Jets are loaded at CB if AG gets that job I can see him staying.

Levi likely gets priced out of our range now that we paid McNeil. Even though he’s one of those guys that could be great on his 2nd contract.

Barnes should be back on a team friendly deal.

Iffy, I’m pretty tired of him and his injuries. 1 year prove it deal. Fine. Or let AG have him
…But we should add Makuba in the draft and essentially knock Iffy off the roster.

Davenport same, 1 year cheap hope we can PUP him and get 1 good game in the playoffs from him. Draft Edge early , add multiple dudes there. Make it so we don’t rely on Davenport at all

Moseley BYE

Al-Q Mohammed- He flashed some pass rush juice he could follow AG

Cominsky, 1 year depth deal vet minimum deal to compete.
Peko same
Vildor same
Pittman, Niemann, Craig, etc those dudes same

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We have 38. They are listing CD3 and Davenport under active contracts, which is incorrect. Their cap hits do not count against active roster and will be moved to dead money at start of the league year.

Not sure where you’re getting $3.6 number from. JRM’s cap hit is currently $4.645m. If he is cut, he carries a dead cap charge of $2.75m, which only frees up $1.895m. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to cut a guy who is one of the best special teams players in the NFL, a team leader, and a guy who can also play snaps on defense. His replacement at the very least will cost league minimum (860k for rookie, 960k-$1.255m for vets based on credited seasons in the league) - so you’re saving $1m at most for a league minimum player replacement. Doesn’t make a ton of sense, imo.

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Yeah, he was a letdown. I had a pretty strong start to the season but was M.I.A. the second half and this was before Alim went down. Not going to cut him but seems like injuries and age is catching up to him.

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They definitely should take that approach.

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I got it from an article and I’m too lazy/sick to verify what’s the correct number.

Problem is we needed LBers bad this season and yet we didn’t use him over guys we grabbed off the street. I don’t think we can argue that he can take snaps on defense when he isn’t being used that way. We’re paying him a lot of money to play just special teams.

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Well, JRM is a WILL linebacker, so he’s not going to be tacking snaps at SAM, which is really the only time he could’ve helped out. He’s Anzalone’s backup and he got injured a week before Anzalone did and came back one week before Anzalone did. In the one game he played that Anzalone wasn’t available, he played 63% of the defensive snaps, while Jack played 100% at LB and Nowaske played 66% at SAM. In the rest of the games, he played backup snaps like you would expect him to, because he’s Anzalone’s backup:
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Not really sure how you’re expecting him to be used? He’s one of the best special teams players in the league and does a decent job as a back up to AA. But no, he’s not going to be the starting SAM linebacker.

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The Lions have been interchanging LBers since Dan got here.

Campbell, Barnes and Rodrigo have played all 3 LBer spots.

FYI - 2023 JRM played the big Nickel on most of his snaps. Subbing in for the SLB playing across AA in our two LBer sets.

But your argument is JRM can only help us at the WILL. Which historically isn’t true but let’s say it’s true for arguments sake.

So you have a guy making 5 mil a year who is only good to us as a back up Will or ST players?

Still that’s very hard to justify because he’s only getting snaps on ST.

I honestly think the Lions thought he’d be more help on defense when they paid him that contract and he hasn’t lived up to it and has proven he’s mainly a ST player. He’s turning 30 and you can get top ST players for far less money than we pay him.

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I mean, I think we’ll just disagree on this. I don’t have any issue with JRM being the 17th highest cap hit on the roster (and will slide down further) to be the leader of the ST unit and provide depth behind AA at a position that looked REALLY bad when both he and AA were out. Dan/Brad do put a premium on ST play and he’s the leader of that unit, which is why he was one of the team’s 6 captains. And the President of the NFLPA.

I think he provides fair value for his contract, and for better or worse, he’s on the contract he’s on. And I don’t think you cut him and replace everything he provides to save $1m by replacing him someone who is making the league minimum. :person_shrugging:

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That’s not SAM or big nickel

That’s a Nickel LB role or WILL

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AA played the WILL when JRM subbed at Nickel LBer in our big Nickel packages

So yes it’s a big nickel role. The two starting LBers in that package in 2023 were AA (at Will) and JRM (at NLB)

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No, because the 5th DB is the nickel back.

I’m not sure what this “Big Nickel” you want to make it out as…

but in 2023 that’s when we ran 3 Safeties with Branch as the nickel back.

We had 4 down lineman… 2 linebackers AA & JRM…and then 5 DBs

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Regardless of terminology, JRM is a quick, coverage backer who’s at his best in space. He’s not a guy you’re gonna line up over the TE and have him help set the edge in the run, or fight through traffic, or try and rush the passer with regularity. The way the SAM role was played this year in this year with Barnes/Nowaske is not where I would expect JRM to be taking any majority of snaps or be successful doing. Can he line up and cover a TE in obvious passing situations? Sure. But that’s about it. That’s why I view him as a WILL - it’s his natural fit.

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Fox Tv Popcorn GIF by The Four

Sweet! Can’t wait for the rest of the nickel die-hards to show up on this. I had the part of my brain that used to care botoxed.

JRM is ST. When everyone’s healthy, Rodrigo will even get snaps before him on defense.

Right now, Lions have no SAM.

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That’s cause JRM was on IR for 2 months too when we needed linebackers. Except for Jack Campbell, the linebackers had a rough year. They all missed a ton of games.

Edit @Davicus already covered it. Should have read the thread fully before replying

I keep JRM and Amik for sure.

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Then how do you explain this?

IMG_8479
IMG_84791206Ă—1210 205 KB

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For what it’s worth the lions signed 8-10 guys yesterday.