Salary Cap Update: Realistic Funds Lions Have to Improve Team

The Detroit Lions have announced several new contract signings this week.

As a result, the picture is slightly more clear regarding just how much salary cap space the team will have to spend in the next couple of weeks.

The NFL announced that the 2022 salary cap for league teams will be $208,200,000. The Lions will add approximately $9.5 million in rollover funds and cap adjustments.

This brings the total to $217,680,572 as a starting point for general manager Brad Holmes to work with.

As has been constantly explained, the salary cap figures are fluid and can change daily.

Here is now we came to our figure of the Lions having approximately $22 million in cap space.

Trey Flowers being released will add the team $10.4 million in cap space.
The top-51 contracts on the Lions current roster costs the team approximately $183,720,892.
Estimating Josh Reynolds cap number in 2022 will be $3.5 million.
The Lions re-signed Ryan McCollum and Rashod Berry, which figure to cost the team $1-2 million in cap space in total.
It will likely cost the team $16 million to sign their 2022 draft class.

Here is how we ended up calculating the math associated with the cap (in millions):

217+10.4 = 227.4
183.7+3.5+2+16 = 205.2

Factoring in cap carryover, adjustments, estimated holds for the five top-100 draft picks and an conservatively estimated $3.5 million hit for Reynolds, the Lions should enter free agency with around $22.5M in cap space. Of course, some of that will be saved in a rainy-day fund.
— Justin Rogers | Detroit Football Network (@Justin_Rogers) March 11, 2022

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