Lions owe the fourth-most dead salary cap money

Brad Holmes, general manager of the Detroit Lions, has swiftly established himself as one of the NFL’s top young talent evaluators.

In three drafts, Holmes has contributed numerous core elements to the organization.

This offseason, players from his first draft class will be available for extensions. Penei Sewell, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Alim McNeill are among the top prospects for contract extensions. If the Lions choose to exercise his fifth-year option, Sewell’s deal can be delayed for another year.

However, some of these decisions about free agency and contracts will be influenced by the $14 million dead limit that was recently established. This arose as a result of seven contracts being automatically nullified on Friday.

According to Over The Cap, the Lions will have dead cap money on their books after releasing Marvin Jones and Isaiah Buggs in 2023. The Lions presently have $15.7 million in dead cap.

That total ranks fourth in the league, according to Over The Cap.Jones and the Lions mutually agreed to his release early in the season after he left to deal with a personal issue.

Buggs joined the Kansas City Chiefs’ practice squad after being released. He recently signed a reserve/futures contract to continue with the team through the 2024 season.

The Los Angeles Chargers now hold the league’s highest dead cap total at $24.6 million, while the Buccaneers have the lowest at $203,678.

A dead cap is established when a player with guaranteed money leaves the team’s roster. In order to manage each player’s cap hit, void years can be included in contracts to help spread out the cap space.

Because these athletes have vacant years in their contracts, Holmes is not surprised by the dead money, which is most likely budgeted.

Teddy Bridgewater, Ceedy Duce, Emmanuel Moseley, Charles Harris, Graham Glasgow, Halapoulivaati Vaitai, and Romeo Okwara were the seven players whose contracts were invalidated last week.

Bridgewater, Gardner-Johnson, Moseley, and Glasgow all signed one-year contracts in 2023 that included void years to stretch out their cap obligations.

Vaitai has the highest current dead cap hit of $3.8 million, while Bridgewater’s is the smallest at $500,000. Other notables include Okwara with a $3.5 million hit and Duce with a $2 million hit.

These seven players’ contracts were canceled on February 16, but they will not be legally free agents until March 13.

Holmes cannot do anything about this dead cap because it is already on the books and cannot be altered. Even if the Lions are able to re-sign these guys, their dead cap impacts will remain unchanged.

This dead cap reduces the amount of money that the Lions may spend in free agency, but the team is still expected to have roughly $44 million in cap space before the season begins.

The Lions presently have 46 players under contract and are ranked seventh in the league in terms of cap space.