I was just joking around with you. Sorry if you took offense.

As for Avril being portrayed as our top FA, I think that is actually pretty accurate. What other free agent of ours has as much market value? Not Backus or Tulloch. While there are certainly other teams who are likely to sign Backus or Tulloch, neither of them will draw as much interest from other teams as Avril. Avril is still young and has performed well for TWO seasons now. I agree that he is every bit the product of the Lions getting better talent on the interior of the line, but he still has to beat the man across from him and get to the passer before the ball leaves his hands. As a run stopper Avril is below average, but that too is a product of the system. The Wide 9 technique pretty much removes him and KVB from being significant against the run unless it's an attempted sweep, or unless they can chase the guy down from behind because the guys on the other side of the line string the play out. That doesn't happen all that often.

Like him or not, 11.5 sacks is a pretty solid number for a DE to get in a year. He's gotten better each season so far. Believe me, if the Lions end up doing a tag and trade, they will likely get a number of teams interested in getting him, and the Lions will get a first round pick out of the deal. Teams like the Jets, Packers or Patriots will definitely be interested in possibly making him a 34 OLB. Cleveland and Tennessee, I believe, would be willing to part with their first round picks (the Browns 22nd pick, not the 4th) to get him. As a matter of fact, Tennessee is so hard up for pass rushers, I think the Lions could get multiple picks from them in return for Avril.

From MMQB. Where did he get that we have 11.7 million to spend? From everything I've been hearing, we're over the cap by 2M.

I can explain this, but you're not going to like it. That total doesn't include cap adjustments, which won't get added until the league year officially begins. Don't ask me why they do it that way, but they always have. So, Peter King's $11.7M number doesn't include CJ's $4.5M bonus, Stafford's $1M salary increase, the escalators for Delmas and Cherilus, the $1.5M or so that the Lions are carrying over from last year, or any other adjustments that we don't know about.

I'm sorry, but if Cherilus is due anything in the way of money I'd cut his butt right now. He hasn't earned it, and the Lions need to shake themselves of this moron ASAP. If Lewand can't get Cherilus to somehow waive that escalator or modify his deal so that the Lions aren't paying him more, then too bad. Cut him, trade him, whatever. He's not worth his first round deal, and everyone knows it.

I agree... I don't know why we would rather over pay this mental midget and move him inside and hope and prey that he can be productive, than draft someone like Kontz.

11.7 is the right figure. We have 46 players under contract for 108.3 mill. Getting to 53 is where people speculate the 122 comes in since that includes Wright, Avril, Tulloch, Gos and Levy. They can still rework some contracts to free up some money, so its possible we'd have more. They'll probably borrow 1.5mil from a future season, and we get 1.5 leftover from last season, so our number is a little higher actually.

I didn't even think about that, but Suh would be the #2 candidate behind CJ to restructure their contract. Depending upon when the 6th year of his contract officially voids, the Lions could free up between $5.8M and $6.5M of cap space by doing a simple restructure.

I was under the impression that CJ, Stafford and Suh all allowed their contracts to be restructured last season to free up money?

No, it was Stafford and Vanden Bosch. CJ and Suh are still on their rookie contracts.

Stafford isn't on his rookie contract? I'm pretty sure he is.

No. Stafford and KVB renegotiated before camp last year in order to free up space for Tulloch. A renegotiation is a new contract, so Stafford technically is no longer playing on his rookie deal.