GG and Monty make up 16 mil and both are likely not coming back.
Decker makes up 21 mil and he could retire.
All 3 of those together is a 20mil cap savings.
Restructure some contracts and we could easily have another 10-20 mil if we wanted it.
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must have got hulk on his side
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Well obviously Seattle is in great shape. They are winning without paying high salaries and recently reset their cap when they fired Pete. Mike McDonald is in his second year, they have had cheap contracts pay off (Darnold, Kupp, others?? - not sure, donât know Seattle well enough).
Comparing the two teams, Sewell is being paid a little more than Seattleâs LT and McNeil is getting a little more than Leonard Williams, but Goff is getting $20M/yr more than Darnold and ARSB is getting $15M/yr more than Kupp. Not to mention that we signed Hutch to a $45M/yr contract, Jamo to a $27M/yr contract, Kerby to $21M/yr, Decker at $20M. Plus we have Jack, Gibbs, LaPorta and Branch on the horizon. Detroit went into this with open eyes, if you pay people more money, itâs going to effect your cap eventually.
Now if we structured our contracts like Philadelphia does, weâd have more than $130M in cap space and no one would be complaining. What simple restructures do is they change the cap hits for players to match with what Philly does with their initial contracts. Thatâs why it really doesnât matter.
We have started paying our players. I donât think we have bad contracts, our top end players are stating to get paid very well. Mike McDonald/John Scheider are in year 2 of rebuilding. We are paying our guys $410M/yr, where Seattle are paying their guys $260M/yr. They are in great shape but they will have to pay their guys (in year 2 of our rebuild we had $26M Goff, $15M Decker, $13M Ragnow and $12M Romeo, $10M Chalk . . . the rest were vet min and rookies contracts). Now Seattle going to the Super Bowl is obviously much better than us knocking the Packers from the 2022 playoffs. They are in great shape from a talent perspective and from a cap perspective. Now the Lions had a tougher task, Quinn left us with less talent and more of a cap burden.
We have a good team, we are paying our guys more. We can continue to pay our guys, but not forever. We had opportunities to be Seattle in 2023/2024 and even this year, but failed. Seattleâs future is as bright as any team. Regardless of what the cap space says, we are in better cap position than Philly, SF, Browns, many others.
We structured our contracts with our eyes wide open, they knew this was going to happen. I knew it was going to happen, Jason at OTC addressed this on his podcast that it was odd. Seattle is a unicorn right now. We can hold the band together for a while longer, but when you are paying players more than the cap, you are borrowing from future years to field the current team, as much as it appears you can do that forever (Philly), you canât, but we can do it for awhile, we are way ahead of Philly.
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Which essentially means, the cap is fake and doesnât matter.
Correct, this is what I meant, Seattle is in great shape and they ahve constructed a pretty damn good roster on some cheap contracts.
Totally agree with this.
This shows IMHO that there are âwindowsâ where you really increase your chances of getting to the SB. Our current window is shrinking due to all the good points you made. The challenge that Holmes will have is to limit the downside when we get to that point that we have to release decent players due to cap and replenish that with Draft/Low hanging FAâs.
Very good post btw!!!
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Restructuring estimates SAVINGS
Goff - 40M
ST Brown - $20m
McNeil - $15m
Sewell - $15m
So thats $90m in savings give or take
Ragnow retires with post June1 designation - $18m
GG retires - $5.5
Monty trade - $3.5
Not saying they will ALL happen but most? Oh yea.
~$120m in total savings
Minus draft picks, $15m for in season, etc
Meaning roughly $80m total in free agency spending money!
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Oh and the Lions have 3 more years in their window.
26, 27, 28
Where the lions have a total of over $170m TOTAL in dead/ Void money. (15% average annual cap)
Dont worry according to carlos 
we could potentially bring Stafford back to Detroit 
âIf this leads to another negotiating impasse between Stafford and the Rams, then things could get interesting for the rest of the NFL,â Monarrez says, adding that he means the Lions.
âThe more I watched Stafford this year â in person during the Lionsâ loss to the Rams in December and throughout the playoffs on TV â the more I was convinced the Lions would have easily made the playoffs with him this season,â he adds in the piece. âHe constantly bought himself more time by scrambling and also made great throws outside the pocket.â
Finally, Monarrez begs the question, âWouldnât it be poetic if, all these years after the Lions made one of the franchiseâs boldest moves by letting Stafford leave, they made an even bolder move by bringing him back?â
I took this from another article quoting not from Carlos article
lol - Carlos hated Stafford when he was here. Now he wants him backâŚ.lol
Typical grass is greener outlook.
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But, I thoughtâŚ
Nevermind.