Updated Detroit Lions Salary Cap Post-Free Agency
The Detroit Lions have managed their salary cap in a manner that has provided the front office and coaching staff an opportunity to add the necessary talent needed to improve the roster.
Detroit currently has a total of 69 players under contract. As a reminder, only the top 51 contracts currently count against the cap.
It is expected the eight players drafted this year will count approximately $8 million against the current space available.
Currently, the team has approximately $25.6 million in cap space to allocate toward team spending, according to Spotrac.
This season, the team has used voidable years on contracts for a significant amount of contracts offered to free agents joining the roster.
Voided years are "dummy" years added to end of contracts. A signing bonus is then pro-rated over all the remaining years of a deal, up to five years.
So, the benefit for general managers is that by adding years to a contract, a team can spread out the overall cap hit across more seasons.
Lions' current salary-cap situation
- Adjusted NFL salary cap -- $227,209,702
- Active Lions contracts -- $204,851,392
- Current dead cap -- $10,250,438
- 2022 rollover -- $2,223,156
- Total (all) -- $215,101,30
- Total (top 51 contracts) -- $201,661,830
- Estimated cap space (all) -- $12,107,829
- Estimated cap space available (top 51) -- $25,547,872
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