Looks like the source is OTC, which has the Lions at $40,345,495. :
Spotrac has a lower number at $38,431,569.
Rather surprised, however, that the Lions have $38.4 to 40.3 Million in salary cap space.
Make a trade for a bigtime DE who has 1 year or 2 left on his contract.
With or without Sutton’s cap hit?
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No way we carry that much into the season…right? Especially a season when we think we can win the Super Bowl…right???
Also, how did we go from no spending money at the end of FA to this much?
Which I believe can be rolled forward to future years. We got a bunch more guys to potentially pay.
Free agents after 2024 include guys like Decker, Alim, Iffy, Barnes. Plus a massive Hutch extension next offseason is likely. Gonna need a ton more cash soon.
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This seems like the logical, and responsible thing to do.
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It gets ugly in 2026-2027 when the Lions fall into the bottom 10 in terms of salary cap space (due to all the recent monster contracts given ARSB, Sewell, and Goff).
Yes but there are other teams that will have to pay out contracts as well. Really have to believe that Brad Holmes has a plan and I can’t believe that he’s not thinking about the cap in the future as well.
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OTC doesnt have Arnolds contract in there yet,
So the ~$38.81M number is what i got (i round tho) by my math is more accurate. Still PLENTY of room $20m goes to practice squad, injuries, and 52&53 men. So call it $18m left is spending but that could be saved for a trade deadline
Or rolled to next year.
My guess is a safety a future roll
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The cap is projected to be just shy of $300M in 2026… we have committed 214M so far, and have 14 or so draft pick between now and then, and let’s assume about 9M per draft class…. So that’s 232M accounted for out of 300M…
Right now we have roughly 22 players under contract now that are still here in 2026 (not counting this years UDFA signings)…add 14 draft picks and suddenly you are at 36- which is pretty damn good this far out.
Let’s assume McNeill and Decker get extended… they will be far cheaper than Sewell and Ra, and 2026 would be year 2 of their new deals. In year 2 Sewell and Ra cost 23M and in year 3 they cost 60M…. Let’s say Decker and Alim cost 20M in 2025, and 40M in 2026- that still leaves over 28M
Goff, Gibby, Ra, Sewell, Rags, Decker, Jamo, Laporta
Hutch, Alim, Jack Campbell, Arnold, Rake, Branch
That’s 14 of your 22 starters already in place, and that means we need Holmes to find 2 plus starters in each coming class, have at least one of this years mid to late round pop… like Manu,
Mahog, Wingo… and that leaves us searching for “two” starters in FA each year, or resigning a guy like Barnes, Iffy, Kerby, etc
Common sense would dictate that most top 5 teams will end up bottom 10 in available cap space, but they also rarely have glaring needs to fill with that space.
Reader, Carlton Davis, Robertson, Davenport, Glasgow, Zeitler, and DPJ cost us a combined 25M…. That’s 4 solid to high end starters and 2 rotational young guys with upside. Having a FA class similar to this one moving forward seems likely. By the time Hutch, Branch, Campbell, Laporta, Gibby, Jamo come due and start to get expensive…most of current big deals will be expiring or can be restructured.
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