It has been one busy offseason for the Detroit Lions. More than most of us are accustomed to, especially in recent memory. General Manager Brad Holmes took talent acquisition to a whole level bringing one playmaker after another. What makes these moves so shrewd is, from the naked eye, they did not overpay for any of these acquisitions.
There is a lot to catch up on after our breakdown from the initial free agency wave, so we will go ahead and look at the latest moves the Lions made the past few days.
Holmes came in with a plan to take the Lions biggest weakness this past season, flipped it on its heels, and made it a force to be reckoned with the signing of Chauncey Gardner-Johnson. The exact cap details haven’t been released, but the Lions were able to sign him to a reasonable one-year, $8,500,000 deal.
Emmanuel Mosley, C.J. Moore, and Michael Badgley’s contract details were released, with Mosley counting $4,294,118 against the cap, Moore’s cap hit at $1,800,000, and Badgley sitting at $1,092,500 cap hit.
With no position to little, Holmes is bringing competition at long snapper signing veteran Jake McQuaide, who has a cap hit of $1,092,500.
To give the Lions extra wiggle room in the salary cap department, they worked out contract restructures with Romeo Okwara and Jack Fox. Okwara’s was a renegotiation versus a restructure, which freed up nearly $9 million in salary cap space, with a cap hit only at $5,647,059 showing how much he wants to be in Detroit. Fox’s restructure freed up $1.6 million and now only counts $1,965,000 towards the salary cap.
Before all the moves were made, the Lions sat at $18.4 million in cap space, but now they have increased it to nearly $22.4 million, according to Over the Cap. Also, they have increased their effective cap spending from $8.3 million to $14 million, giving them the extra breathing room to make depth signings and sign their rookie class.
The Lions have been very busy this offseason making one impactful move after another. They have brought in players who can contribute immediately while keeping players who played a vital role in the last year’s success while keeping the salary cap very manageable with effective contract negotiations. The Lions have put the league on notice that they are ready to compete with anyone and take the next leap forward to great and continued success.
