The Grandmaster was Right!

The priority here had to be getting rid of bad talent with bad contracts. We have 1 or 2 left, Brockers and possibly Big V. Big V is simply overpaid, he obviously brings some talent. Brockers came with the thought of what he could do for the locker room, that vet presence that you need, whatever. If he doesn’t have a good camp I’m not sure about how long my leash would be. Different D, maybe it’s more friendly to what he’s got left in the tank, who knows? We would only save like a million by cutting Brockers, but I’m not against going there. Again it comes back to how he performs leading up to the season.
Now, going forward use the dough to sign our studs and be really, REALLY careful about signing any in FA. Continuity of core players is the priority. Continuity of staff and coaching philosophies is a priority. Kick the “cash can” down the road when you have a team that will benefit from going down that road. I really believe that even if we don’t have a winning season we will have enough pieces in place to start that process next season. That doesn’t mean you have to be “all in”, it does mean that you are one step closer to being all in. Be smart, that’s it, be smart.

We had money under Quinn. We didn’t have money in Brad’s first year. We COULD have had money just for the sake of having money, but it would have meant making terrible decisions like doubling down on players like Trey Flowers.

One of the keys to moving money around is having good players to do it with. And that’s the odd position Quinn put us in for the 2021 season.

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x1000

Here’s a list that you originally started, I added in the compensation difference in 2021. Plus on top of that, we paid Flower’s $14.375M in 2021 (yet to sign, likely going to be very cheap . . . highly overpaid) and Jamie Collins, who we paid $9M in 2021 (yet to sign, likely done).

You can’t and shouldn’t move money around when you have bad players.

Kudos to Holmes for stepping up and getting rid of the bad players and just taking the hit. I think this is something that Brad learned from Snead. Whenever Snead has made a bad decision, he cuts bait and owns it (Gurley, Cooks). Holmes just had to do it with Quinn’s trash.

Slated 2021 Actual Bob Quinn
Compensation Compensation Effect Notes
Desmond Trufant 9,500,000 850,000 8,650,000 Raiders ½ Year
Justin Coleman 8,950,000 2,250,000 6,700,000 Miami
Nicholas Williams 4,650,000 1,500,000 3,150,000 Lions reduced salary
Danny Shelton 4,000,000 987,500 3,012,500 NY Giants
Joe Dahl 2,843,750 1,450,000 1,393,750 Injury Settlement
Christian Jones 3,650,000 987,500 2,662,500 Chicago Bears
Chase Daniel 4,550,000 1,075,000 3,475,000 LA Chargers
Tracey Walker 2,183,000 2,183,000 - Lions
Tyrell Crosby 2,183,000 2,183,000 - IR
Jesse James 5,000,000 1,650,000 3,350,000 Chicago Bears
47,509,750 15,116,000 32,393,750
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Quinn put us in a bad spot. I agree.

Holmes and Brad chose to take a big hit year one and rid themselves of a bunch of the bad decisions. They then took another hit this year when they ditched Flowers. I have no problem with those decisions.

However I disagree with a couple of your comments.

Freeing up more money doesn’t mean their doing it just for the sake of having money and it doesn’t equate to a bad decision. It depends on what you do with that money.

The Rams, Chiefs, Saints and Bucs have been doing a lot of just that. I wouldn’t call what they’ve done as bad decisions or just for the sake of doing it.

It’s a choice Holmes and company decided to make. I do not have an issue with the choice they made. Well except for the WR’s we signed last off season. Those were bad choices but I give them a pass.

My issue comes from posters claiming they had no choice because they had no money, couldn’t have money or that clearing money meant they were making a bad choice…. That’s just not true or factual. This video explains just how teams do it and how they do it year after year.

Yet there are some who still claim they had no other options.

There has always been a disconnect between what you are saying and what people have been trying to explain. And since you are never willing to get into the specifics…only speaking in generalities…its hard for you to bridge the gap.

Moving money around isn’t a bad thing, unless you are using bad or overpaid players to do it. There are various reasons for this. One major reason is when you extend a bad/overpaid player you are locking yourself into his services for longer. Because if you get rid of him soon after using the trick the Saints use, his dead money is going to accelerate. Which is defeating the purpose. Look at the specifics and you will see why some people are trying to say 2021 was unique.

Justin Coleman - It would have cost more money to keep Coleman than the cap hit that came with cutting him. The only way to gain money from the Justin Coleman contract would have been to give him a contract extension. Which is what most people would consider a bad decision.

Desmond Trufant - It would have cost more money to keep Trufant than the cap hit that came with cutting him. The only way to gain money from the Desmond Trufant contract would have been to give him a contract extension. Which is what most people would consider a bad decision.

Jesse James - It would have cost more money to keep James than the cap hit that came with cutting him. The only way to gain money from the Jesse James contract would have been to give him a contract extension. Which is what most people would consider a bad decision.

Christian Jones - It would have cost more money to keep Jones than the cap hit that came with cutting him. The only way to gain money from the Christian Jones contract would have been to give him a contract extension. Which is what most people would consider a bad decision.

Chase Daniel - It would have cost more money to keep Daniel than the cap hit that came with cutting him. The only way to gain money from the Chase Daniel contract would have been to give him a contract extension. Which is what most people would consider a bad decision.

Those are you “major” cuts leading into the 2021 season. They were moves that needed to be made, but the action of cutting them wasn’t the cap killer. We aren’t talking about guys who had a bunch of years left on their deal and the signing bonus acceleration exceeded what they would have made that season. I hope we have established that the cuts did not cost us more money than keeping those players. Now let’s look at the few players left on the roster that had any real money in their deals to play with:

Jared Goff - We went to the bank of Goff and got a loan for the 2021 season. We took 2021 money and pushed it into the future to save money. So we did do some cost saving moves.

Michael Brockers - We did the same thing here when we gave him his new contract. His 2021 salary was artificially low and we pushed his real money into the future. So we did a cost saving move here.

Trey Flowers - This is the type of CONTRACT that teams use to squeeze money out, and push money into the future. However, they don’t do it with a PLAYER like Trey Flowers. Flowers would have also cost more money to cut than to keep. If you feel like giving Trey Flowers a new contract was a viable option, say it. What people are trying to say is that its a bad move. Moving money in general is not the bad move. Its using a guy like Trey Flowers to move money that’s a bad move. We would be looking at a dead cap hit so high for Flowers that he would be virtually uncuttable in 2022. That’s why its called a bad move.

Big V - Screw trying to spell this guys name. This is another CONTRACT that a team like the Saints use to gain cap space. However, they don’t do it with a PLAYER like Big V. We were in the same boat with Big V as with Flowers in that it would cost more money to cut the guy than to keep him. That bought him another season. We could have squeezed out a few dollars from Big V by giving him a new contract, but again that is what people are saying is a bad move. Not the act of moving money…but doing it with a guy like Big V.

Jamie Collins - This was another gem of a contract handed out by Bob Quinn. However, we used the accounting trick on Collins contract. That’s one of the reasons why his cap hit was so large when we cut him. And that’s also why its considered a bad move to do the accounting trick with certain players. And Quinn stacked the roster with those types of players.

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Daaaamn, bro. Thank you for all of that

And, Mayhew learned it from Millen. We were in cap hell when Mayhew took over.
I like the way Holmes is building this team (although, I’m not sure about getting Funchess).

To me…cap hell is when a team is like 30-40 million over the cap. I don’t ever recall the Lions being that much over the cap. They’ve always hovered around the limit of space but I don’t recall them being so deep in debt that they have to make ,like major cuts just to get under the cap.

Cap Hell, IMO is when you do things to the cap that makes it hard to keep good players.

We had to constantly restructure Suh/Stafford/Johnson’s contracts in order to stay under the cap in 2011/2012/2013/2014. This made it so that Suh’s franchise tag figure was $27M, 40% higher than it should have been, because of his restructures.

We were without a doubt, 100%, definitely in cap hell 2011-2015 under Mayhew. Not being able to franchise Suh was an absolutely unforgivable mistake on Mayhew’s part. We could have franchised him for $19M, but because of restructures it jumped to almost $27M to franchise him.

We were in cap hell for a different reason with Quinn, he signed so many bad UFA’s for large amounts of money, that they had to be cut (Flowers and Collins would have also been cut if they didn’t have guaranteed money).

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Cap hell like what? 20-30-40 million over the cap?

Cap hell like Increasing Suh’s franchise tag from $19M to $27M, because of mismanaging the cap.

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Thanks for explaining it. I’m not great with the $$$ side.

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To me that is not cap hell. That’s just moving money around. Cap hell is like what the 49ers were in back in the 90s and they had to gut their roster to get under the cap. The Lions have never had to fit their roster. They may have been at cap limit…but not cap hell!

I don’t recall them “gutting” their roster. And I surely don’t recall them mismanaging the cap so badly that they lost a player in their prime, the caliber as Suh (38 year old Jerry Rice, while still productive, wouldn’t count). That, IMO, is cap hell.

I guess we have different definitions on what “Cap Hell” is. That’s fine, it’s just my definition doesn’t fit yours and your definition doesn’t fit mine.

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I wouldn’t judge a teams salary cap situation by the bottom line number. “Cap hell” is in the details of the individual contracts on the roster. A team could be $20M over by the original numbers and actually be in good cap shape.

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They couldn’t keep Deion. They had to let go guy like Ken Norton, Lee Woodall, Eric Davis, Gary Plummer. The 49ers actually got in trouble with the NFL for circumventing the salary cap…which led to Carmen Policy getting fired and Eddie DeBartolo losing the team to his sister, who actually reported him to the league.

Your memory of that team and that time period is slightly “off.” I would suggest going back with a clean 2022 mind and take a closer look at those players careers and what really happened.

I will get you started. Ken Norton played until 2000…was 35 years old…and never played another down after the 49ers. Gary Plummer was 37 and never played another down after the 49ers. Lee Woodall was 30 and only had 1 more year as a starter in the NFL. Deion only signed a 1 year deal with the 49ers. After that he went to the Cowboys…who were not exactly void of talent and contracts to deal with.

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And what about Eric Davis and Merton Hanks? What about Dana Stubblefield? I was off on Ken Norton…I thought they cut him earlier than 2000. But the let Woodall go. My point was the 49ers were in cap hell and could not keep a lot of their best players because of it…which is why they circumvented the cap and they got in trouble for it.

Meanwhile the Lions were able to sign their key free agents that they wanted to keep. The only guy we really lost was Davis. Going into the 2021 season the Lions had a decent amount of salary cap space when Holmes took over.

It was the clearing out of Quins roster and the Stafford trade that stressed our cap situation. It was a choice the Lions FO chose to make. It wasn’t something they were forced to do like the SF example you talk about.

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