You’re going to have “dead money” under the salary cap when your GM is brain dead

The Lions have over $15 million in salary cap “dead money” being paid to 13 former players. When asked about this, all Matt Millen could say was, “Whoops!”

Actually, everything above is true, save for the Millen quote. Though it wouldn’t surprise if the porn ‘stached goon did say as much.

According to Mlive’s Killer Kowalski, the following 13 former Lions are counted against their 2008 salary cap. Read ’em, and weep…

"• DT Shaun Rogers — $4.27 million• OL Damien Woody — $3 million• CB Fernando Bryant — $2.33 million• S Kenoy Kennedy — $1.36 million• DE Kalimba Edwards — $1 million• WR Eddie Drummond — $1 million• RB Kevin Jones — $741,000• RB Shawn Bryson — $500,000• OL Rex Tucker — $333,000• LB A.J. Davis — $240,000• OL Barry Stokes — $180,000• OL Blaine Saipaia — $150,000• LB Johnny Baldwin –$84,000"

That’s a total of $15.2 million! That’s $15,200,000 million worth of bad scouting, worse cap management and serial bad decision making by the Lions “brain trust.” (term used extremely loosely) Considering the Lions are still looking for help at several of these same positions in the upcoming draft (OL, DE, RB, LB) makes it all the more frustrating.

Admittedly, the Lions have managed to work their way around being hamstrung with so much dead money this off season, signing what we can only hope to be upgrades over the defensive backs on the above list. But given their track record, what are the odds those newly signed players will be any better?

Where could $15 million have been better spent? Thinking outside the box, in several ways…

• It could have allowed the Lions to NOT raise the price of tickets.
• Lower beer prices.
• Sign 2 superstars, or 4-5 solid, NFL quality players.
• Buy out the contracts of any front office dead weight, starting with you know who.
• Buy a new scouting staff a few times over.
• Hire a search firm to find a new GOD DAMN GM!

I’m not being serious (save for cleaning out the front office), but it gives you an idea as to the amount of money we’re taking about. $15 million is a massive cap hit!

I don’t have much confidence in Rod Marinelli, but at least he seems to have a plan. That plan being to sign players he knows. Then again, how much could he really do when having to work around that stupid silly amount of wasted cap space?

Killer closes by saying the Lions will suffer through this season of salary cap Hell to allow themselves to be free and clear in 2009.

"Now that Marinelli has assembled a roster of players that he has mostly brought in himself — only 14 (of 69) players remain from the previous regime — there is expected to be much less turnover next season. With almost all of the current dead money coming off the rolls next year, the Lions are expected to be back in excellent shape cap-wise going into the 2009 season."

That’s all well and good, but the line that gets me is “there is expected to be much less turnover next season.”

They may expect to not have much turnover, but is that believable? What if the Lions have another 10 loss season, will Marinelli even be here in ’09? For that matter, did you notice 2 of the players counting as dead money this coming season were 2007 draft picks? Johnny Baldwin and A.J. Davis never made the Lions’ roster.

That reason alone gives me pause regarding whom the Lions are targeting in the upcoming draft, their newly signed free agents, and the likelihood we’ll see those names listed as cap “dead money” going into 2009.