http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/detroit-lions/cap-hit/

I don't know how accurate the breakdown on this website is. It has us at about 101M meaning we'd have $19M to spend. On the NFC North Blog on ESPN, it showed us at 122M meaning we're over the projected cap of $120M.

Anybody out there have any answers on this?

I would venture to say that the ESPN numbers are wrong, as I've seen various sites that talk about the Lions having about $11M of cap space currently. However, that is without Avril, Tulloch, Backus, Wright, Hill, Stanton and a number of other players not under contract. Tom Lewand is going to have to get some deals redone to clear some space. Also, we'll probably see some players cut, like Corey Williams and perhaps even Nate Burleson, if they don't agree to pay cuts. If the Lions can ink Calvin to a new deal that lowers his cap number, that would help as well.

To be honest, I actually have no idea this time around. I've seen everything from $20M under to $2M over, so it's clear that most people don't know what they're talking about either. But, if I were to guess, I'd say they are about $4-5M under the cap right now. However, that will change before free agency begins because of tenders, extensions, cuts, and renegotiations.

So, it's not until FA begins that Backus, Avril, and Co's last years salary comes off of the books and we see the real number?

No, I'm not saying that at all. Any numbers people throw out there now won't include upcoming free agents like Avril or Tulloch. They're already off the books, per se. I'm talking about possibly cutting Corey Williams and saving $5M or extending CJ and gaining millions in cap space for this year. A lot will change before now and March 13th.

In another thread I talked about the cap adjustments that won't take affect until the New League Year begins. That includes CJ's $4.5M bonus, salary escalators for Stafford, Delmas, Cherilus, etc. and the carryover of any cap space from last year. If anyone posts an official cap commitment figure before then, it will not include those numbers.

burleson wont be cut - his contract was something like 5/25 mill w around 10 mill signing bonus. if i understand things correctly that would mean that the remaining prorated portion of his signing bonus, 6 million, would count on this season's cap if he was cut. basically would cost more vs the cap if he was cut than if he remained on. not to mention that he is a team leader and is linehan's idea of an ideal no 2 wr.

As I mentioned in another thread, I believe Burleson received a roster bonus instead of a signing bonus during the uncapped year, so there is no proration from that. However, it looks like he did a simple restructure in the middle of last season, so he would now have a small proration of $270K per year or something like that. I am not positive of this though.

I saw Cullen Jenkins restructured his contract in Philly to make it less this year but longer in duration. Might be a good idea to try something like that with C. Williams.

Sly, I know it's alot of work, and you may have already done this but, is there any way we could get a list that shows the cap hit for our players currently under contract?

That and the hit we would take if they were cut?

As I said it's alot of work so if you could tell me where to find this info I'll go looking for it.

Can't remember where, but I read that the official cap mumber will be given to the teams in the next 10 days.

That's mighty nice of the league to do that. Especially since teams have to decide who or if anyone on their team will get Franchised. Plus the corresponding cuts that have to be done to make franchising that player possible. Picture this, Team X franchises Player A. To make room for Player A's franchise tag, ( because they have to assume at this point, a flat cap, and hope that it doesn't actually shrink), they cut players B,C,and D. ( All by Monday)

Well the NFL comes along 10 days from now and says the cap grew by $10 Million. Does team X now go back to players B,C, and D and say that they were just kidding?

This is the most up to date numbers I've found:


Detroit Lions
Player Pos. Base Salary Signing Bonus Other Bonus Cap Figure

Calvin Johnson WR 14,000,000 2,333,333 1,420,800 17,754,133

Matthew Stafford QB 10,500,000 3,033,333 1,000,000 14,533,333

Ndamukong Suh DT 9,250,000 - 1,600,000 10,850,000

Corey Williams DT 4,900,000 1,083,333 100,000 6,083,333

Kyle Vanden Bosch DE 5,000,000 - - 5,000,000

Chris Houston CB 3,000,000 1,000,000 - 4,000,000

Nate Burleson WR 4,000,000 - - 4,000,000

Dominic Raiola C 3,400,000 - - 3,400,000

Jason Hanson K 2,550,000 675,000 - 3,225,000

Justin Durant LB 1,750,000 1,375,000 - 3,125,000

Stephen Peterman G 2,725,000 - - 2,725,000

Nick Fairley DT 824,500 1,422,500 - 2,247,000

Jahvid Best RB 640,500 1,001,000 580,000 2,221,500

Lawrence Jackson DE 915,000 1,220,000 - 2,135,000

Tony Scheffler TE 1,550,000 500,000 - 2,050,000

Brandon PettigrewTE 1,062,500 766,500 - 1,829,000

Rob Sims G 1,500,000 - - 1,500,000

Alphonso Smith CB 695,000 537,500 187,500 1,420,000

Gosder Cherilus T 810,000 100,000 480,000 1,390,000

Louis Delmas S 822,500 545,000 - 1,367,500

Will Heller TE 900,000 283,333 - 1,183,333

Titus Young WR 465,000 452,500 236,667 1,154,167

John Wendling S 700,000 233,333 40,000 973,333

Dylan Gandy G 850,000 - - 850,000

Mikel Leshoure RB 465,000 251,237 17,761 733,998

Amari Spievey CB 490,000 233,333 - 723,333

Stefan Logan WR 615,000 - - 615,000

Jason Fox C 490,000 110,302 - 600,302

John Culbreath T 390,000 15,950 157,000 562,950

Don Carey CB 540,000 - - 540,000

Joique Bell RB 540,000 - - 540,000

Doug Hogue LB 465,000 45,000 - 510,000

Willie Young DE 490,000 16,000 - 506,000

Aaron Berry CB 490,000 833 - 490,833

Keiland Williams RB 490,000 - - 490,000

Leonard Davis T UFA - - -
Don Muhlbach C UFA - - -
Ashlee Palmer LB RFA - - -
Jeff Backus T UFA - - -
Chris Harris S UFA - - -
Erik Coleman S UFA - - -
Sammie Lee Hill DT RFA - - -
Shaun Hill QB UFA - - -
Corey Hilliard T RFA - - -
Kevin Smith RB UFA - - -
Isaiah Ekejiuba LB UFA - - -
Cliff Avril DE UFA - - -
Drew Stanton QB UFA - - -
Maurice Stovall WR UFA - - -
Andre Fluellen DT UFA - - -
Stephen Tulloch LB UFA - - -
Bobby Carpenter LB UFA - - -
Rashied Davis WR UFA - - -
DeAndre Levy LB RFA - - -
Ben Graham P UFA - - -
Eric Wright CB UFA - - -
Brandon McDonald CB UFA - - -
Maurice Morris RB UFA - - -
Buyouts
Richard Dickson TE 2,333 - - 2,333

Total Cap Hit 101,331,381

All the players I have bolded above the Lions either need to cut or renegotiate with. I mean, we're paying Will Heller almost $1.2M as a third TE. I think we can sign a UDFA TE for a minimal contract and allow Heller to go. I like the guy, but I hate seeing that much money spent on the third guy on the depth chart. Spievey shouldn't get paid. Cut him and save a half a million. And now I see why the Lions are trying to trade Alfonso Smith. I wouldn't pay him that bonus. They'll end up cutting him. Matt, Calvin and Ndamukong will all likely get their cap numbers reduced either by a new deal (Calvin) or some bookkeeping wizardry to take part of their salaries and convert them to bonus money, like they did last year. Do that with Stafford and Suh. Cut Corey Williams, cut Stephen Peterman, and tell both Nate and Dominic that they have to either accept paycuts or be released. They shouldn't be making that much money.

You guys do know the link I posted to start this tread has the breakdown of the cap hits for this year and on the same site you can view future years and individual player contracts.

Let's not panic. Lewand (and to some extent Mayhew) get paid a lot of money to handle this sort of thing. I'm sure they have a plan for how to deal with it that includes cutting as few starters as possible.

This also brings me back to something I thought of a while back--teams with high picks before the rookie wage scale should get some sort of salary cap waiver for those contracts until they expire--it's ridiculous that we're saddled with all these unavoidable huge contracts after years of being bad. Talk about insult to injury.