Amid talk of extensions for Brian Branch and Sam LaPorta, the Detroit Lions have other cap related moves to worry about with far less time to figure it out.
Beginning Monday, the Lions have to be at or under the league's cap of $301.2 million, and they're sitting at $325.6 million, according to Over The Cap as of Saturday morning.
So, they'll need to clear up around $24 million by Monday, and they'll presumably want to have some room beyond that. We'll guess that Detroit wants that extra spending cap headed into the season in case of any mid-year trades or emergency signings.
They have some options to clear up this space, with several contracts that could be restructured. Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Penei Sewell, and Alim McNeill stand out as the most obvious restructuring candidates for the Lions, but deciding on which contract to restructure could indicate which Lions players the team is tying themselves to, money wise, for the long-haul.
Detroit's impending restructuring decisions could have long-term implications
This offseason and ahead of the teams' free agency spending, the team partially restructured Goff's contract. That cleared up $32 million spending money, but also converted part of Goff's contract into signing bonus money. As laid out by our own Michael Colwander back when this restructuring was announced:
"Of course, this isn't free money. A restructure converts a part of the contract to a signing bonus, allowing the team to spread out the cap hit beyond this season. Per Over the Cap, Goff's cap hit increases by $8 million in 2027 and 2028. 2029 is now a void year, in which Goff will have a $16 million cap hit, even if he departs the team as a free agent."
So, the Lions are tied to Goff through 2029 against their cap, even though he'll be a free agent by that point and 35 years old. Will the Lions even consider Goff their QB1 by that point? That's, of course, a question for someone with a crystal ball.
Restructuring St. Brown's, Sewell's, or McNeill's deal(s) make more sense here. Sewell, especially, would be an ideal candidate for this considering he's only 26 years old, and restructuring his deal would clear up just over $13 million in cap space, per OTC's cap calculator.
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Restructuring St. Brown's deal would clear up just over $20 million for this year, and McNeill's would clear up just over $15 million.
Restructuring Sewell's deal would have long-term implications for their cap space in the future, though, which could be a greater problem considering the numerous extensions yet to hit their cap space - Aidan Hutchinson, Jack Campbell, and Jahmyr Gibbs' deals stick out like expensive (but necessary) sore thumbs.
But, again, it's a necessary evil that doesn't feel too much like kicking the can down the road, but more so avoiding getting tied up in a deal with Goff past the teams' partnership with him.
The Lions don't need to do anything necessarily drastic and restructure multiple deals to be cap compliant. And, they don't need to touch Goff's deal again if they don't want to, and they really shouldn't. While the team doesn't seem all that concerned about locating their quarterback of the future right now, he will be 35 by the end of his deal and likely past his prime.
Tying themselves down to Goff for any longer than that by way of a ton of signing bonus money being owed to the multi-time Pro Bowler just doesn't seem like a smart play from this front office.
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