Taylor Decker Restructures Contract

The Detroit Lions needed to clear a certain amount of salary cap space in order to be compliant with the league's mandated cap rules.

As a result, offensive lineman Taylor Decker has agreed to restructure his current NFL contract.

It was expected, as Decker's deal allowed the team to turn a portion of his salary into a signing bonus, freeing up $4.5 million in cap space.

The team decided to convert $6 million of his base salary into a signing bonus.

Since Detroit has a young roster, only a handful of players were eligible to have their deals renegotiated.

The reason teams opt to modify deals is to boost cap space quickly.

Players oftentimes are willing to renegotiate their deals, since once the money is converted into a prorated bonus, those monies become fully guaranteed.

Reallocating how a player receives his money allows teams the ability to sign players to their practice squad, stock some funds away for a rainy day and field a complete 53-man roster.

General manager Brad Holmes created space last season when he restructured quarterback Jared Goff's NFL contract.

Heading into the weekend, the team was slightly in the red in terms of salary cap space.

The Lions have converted $6M of OT Taylor Decker’s base salary into a signing bonus, creating $4.5M in 2022 cap space, per source.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) September 3, 2022

Join the AllLions Community

Become a premium AllLions member, which grants you access to all of our premium content and gets you a FREE subscription to Sports Illustrated! Click on the link below for more.

BECOME A MEMBER