A trade offer was proposed for Suh

[lionstop1]

The mock has nothing with Suh involved.

From what I'm hearing, expect the Lions to take a CB in the first only in a trade down situation. The word is that they like at leastthree of them towards the middle of the first.

 

[TrustMeIamRight]

As soon as the draft is over Suh's agent should ask for more $. I won't even speculate on what amount they are asking for, doesn't even matter, come Friday morning it's $5m/yr higher and there isn't a damn thing the Lions can do about it A trade was the only leverage at all the Lions had and without that they have none.

YEP. Suh isn't dumb. He knows he holds all the cards, because of the way the front office kept pushing back the cap hit on his contract. I would be willing to wager it had a lot to do with the reason he wasn't worried about not having an agent for over a month, because he never planned on getting a deal done until after the draft, if at all.

Once the draft is done, he can just tell the Lions front office to back up the Brinks truck or I'll walk next year. I don't think there is a player in the NFL in my recent memory, other than Calvin Johnson, who held 100% of the negotiating power. Either the Lions give in and make him the highest paid defensive player or take a 3rd round comp pick. Sadly, the 3rd round comp pick is looking like a better option for the future of the team, unless they think the NFL is going to continue to raise the cap every year.

 

[Naughtymax]

I'd take a mid-first rounder for him because of the cap space freed up. For a team with plenty of cap room it could be a winner - the guy will be better on defense in the next 3 years than anything available in this draft.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

The best we can hope for is that this is another smokescreen.

Tennessee and NYG would be ideal partners. Both could use help at RB so packaging Leshoure with Suh would make a trade that much more attractive. No RB is coming off the board in this draft until at least the 2nd rd so getting a former 2nd rd pick is a pretty good deal.

We get their first round pick and second rd pick. They get two players and in reality dont really give up a pick. That's a great trade for everybody. Cap savings $3.8m this year and $13.2m in 2015.

I get that he is our best defender but I'm genuinely interested in why Suh supporters see keeping him as being advantagous to us given what the trade option offers us?

The "reality" (yes, the true reality) is that he can sign a very large extension and the Lions continue to have serious cap problems going forward. Yes, the "reality" is that we had them coming into the offseason (saved solely by an unexpected and large cap increase) and will have them again for years if he is resigned.

Or, you could trade him and get additional draft picks (in a very deep draft) and go into the next year with some actual breathing room from a cap perspective. That would open doors in FA that we havent had in the past.

 

[black_magic]

Trade suh to oakland for their 1st. Oakland has a shit ton of cap, and could really use a stopper like him on defense paired with justin tuck. Makes sense for both teams (or only the lions . Or the jags as well. Both those teams are in the same spot that the lions were when they drafted suh. Then we can draft clowned with that pick, move jason jones inside, have a dline of Taylor, Fairley, Jones, Clowney, then draft either anthony barr or Dennard. Stellar defense, if i do say so myself.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

BTW, that breathing room can be parlayed into slowly moving the Lions towards a position where the salary cap can give you a real advantage.

Teams with space can actually add players where you can front load a sizable amount of player compensation in guarantees and pay that out in salary vs signing bonus and therefore dramatically reduce the dead money on deals and keep that space in the years to follow.

J. Byrd signed a 6yr/$54m deal this offseason with a cap constrained Saints team. To make that happen his cap hit is only $3.5m and jumps almost $7m in the second year to $10.3m. This is how cap problems continue on and on for the same teams, like the Lions.

But if they had a little space, like the Lions would if they traded Suh, they could have written that deal with a signing bonus of say $3.6m (instead of the $11m he got from the Saints) and a first year salary of say $10m. That is more $ in the first year than he got from the Saints. So he even benefits from the time value of $. Our offer would have been more financially attractive as a result.

But in the second year you could drop that salary down and use that saved cap space to sign another FA with a similar contract. Simply put a small option bonus on the contract ammortized over the last five years of the deal, say $2m. So this player is carrying only $5m in dead money left to ammortize at $1m/yr average. Pay him a $5m salary in year two and he has been paid more $ in those two years than he would have under that Saints deal and his cap hit is still a very reasonable $6.1m in that second year.

You should note I only used $10.6m of the $15m we had in space for that first year in this example so I left the team with additional space to sign another player, like Golden Tate with relative ease. Now imagine that scenario WITH the cap raise we got this year. What could you do now in FA and contract structure to bring in new players or actually restructure the already restructured deals to correct the problems we created and keep the Lions in a good cap position going forward where you could easily targer any FA that you wanted. It is that simple. I know some of you think I just spew bullshit and dont know a damn thing about the cap because its an oh so complicated thing but it isnt. It's not complicated at all when you first get a little space built into your situation. We havent had that in a damn decade and thats why its always a problem.

The semantics of roster bonuses, option bonuses, LTBE and NLTBE earned bonus are nothing more than tools to finagle the structure of how compensation applies yearly vs ammortized over the length of the contract.

The Lions can create that opportunity for themselves by trading Suh and get some valuable draft picks for it in the process. If the picks are good the team will absolutley be in a better position to contend for a championship.

 

[JDM]

From the information I see (spotrac and over the cap), you only have ~1.5 in cap room, and you'd only free up about 3 million this year. That doesn't give you a lot to work with this year like you're implying, especially if you got a first back and had to pay 2 first rounders. Next year you would avoid the 10 million of dead money, but you're still paying ~30 million for stafford and Johnson, so I'm not sure how much flexibility that gives you.

 

[lionstop1]

Save your breath and typing Dr. Eviler, everyone wants to keep him no matter what.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

From the information I see (spotrac and over the cap), you only have ~1.5 in cap room, and you'd only free up about 3 million this year. That doesn't give you a lot to work with this year like you're implying, especially if you got a first back and had to pay 2 first rounders. Next year you would avoid the 10 million of dead money, but you're still paying ~30 million for stafford and Johnson, so I'm not sure how much flexibility that gives you.

I never said this year, I gave an example using the type of space the Lions could have after trading Suh for future years. Other contracts we have offer cap savings next year where the Lions can cut underperformers that simply cost two much. Paying the rookies this year won't be an issue even with perhaps some additional early rd picks. There are spots the team can create easy space. My future year example however is dead on.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

From the desk of the Reality Club President

Save your breath and typing Dr. Eviler, everyone wants to keep him no matter what.

I only offered it for discussion purposes to help people understand why I would be advocating trading the best defensive player we have. There are significant advantages to it when you look at it big picture.

It wont control what happens since Millenhew will almost certainly screw everything up anyway because no one in the front office actually has any vision when it comes to how they manage anything. Pretty much every move they make ends up only adding to the problem rather than being something towards a solution.

 

[JDM]

My point wasn't that you couldn't pay your rookies, it was that you didn't have much to work with afterwards.

You still have Stafford and Johnson eating up 35, 41, and 42 million starting next year, was my other point. (Sorry about the 30 million number in the last post btw. That was this coming year) You're "saving" on Suh relative to extending him and continuing the same absurd cycle or even just keeping him this year, but there's still a lot of the cap eaten up.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

My point wasn't that you couldn't pay your rookies, it was that you didn't have much to work with afterwards.

You still have Stafford and Johnson eating up 35, 41, and 42 million starting next year, was my other point. (Sorry about the 30 million number in the last post btw. That was this coming year) You're "saving" on Suh relative to extending him and continuing the same absurd cycle or even just keeping him this year, but there's still a lot of the cap eaten up.

A very quick look at our 2015 numbers and the cuts that pretty much every single Lions fan on this board would be very happy with (Houston, Jones, Broyles) would add $7.2m to the $13.4m saved in 2015 if Suh were traded. There is another $8m+ on the team of very questionable players that could be easily replaced with less expensive yet better players.

Even if the Lions did not cut, release, or trade any of those questionable players the easy cuts and Suh cap savings would provide $20.6m in space. Obviously that hypothetical amount being a future amount and would be reduced by the cost of the draft picks we acquire this year. Note that in my example only four players would be removed from the current 2015 51 player amount we show. I would absolutely expect that more than 4 players would be added to our roster via the draft this year, and thats an absolute certainty should Suh be traded.

Lets say that 6 are added to the roster from the draft (and assuming that includes two first rounders, and two second rounders under the trade value I proposed) that would be about $11m in cap cost for 2015. However, that also means that 6 players fall off of our cap count for 2015. Thats at least $3.5m. That would leave the Lions with a 51 player roster and $13m in cap space. Any cap raise would simply be a bonus. I cant remember any year in the last decade or more where the Lions actually had space more than a couple million dollars, and certainly not $13m.

 

[TrustMeIamRight]

My point wasn't that you couldn't pay your rookies, it was that you didn't have much to work with afterwards.

JDM -- are you insinuating the Lions would be better off regarding cap space signing Suh to an extension, than they would be by trading him or letting him walk?

 

[JDM]

JDM -- are you insinuating the Lions would be better off regarding cap space signing Suh to an extension, than they would be by trading him or letting him walk?

Not at all. You should trade him for as much as you can get.


I'm simply saying that there's still a challenge to be handled even after that move. An extension would be crippling, and you're avoiding that with a trade, but even with a trade you're paying as much as most teams pay their top three players to your top 2. There's still work to be done.

 

[Old Lion]

Both Stafford and Suh were given too much money. DT is not as high an impact as CB or OLB/DE. I do not wish to ay any DT that kind of money even if he was the best that ever lived. The position does not require it.

 

[Thruthefog]

Both Stafford and Suh were given too much money. DT is not as high an impact as CB or OLB/DE. I do not wish to ay any DT that kind of money even if he was the best that ever lived. The position does not require it.

I'm not getting into an argument, but at least now I understand why some people are willing to let Suh go.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

I'm not getting into an argument, but at least now I understand why some people are willing to let Suh go.

I realize I am greatly in the minority here and also that my salary cap rants to some are annoying/aggravating/confusing/stupid/wish he would just shut the fuck up/and often way too long. That's probably why they are rarely even responded to. At the same time I believe them to be factual representations of where our team stands on a critical component of long term success.

I don't know what amount he is asking for, but I do think its pretty obvious it must be quite a bit more than the Lions are willing to pay otherwise we would have a deal done already due to how important it is. Simply assuming that we will be able to sign him at any point after the draft up until the trade deadline is an enormous risk IMO, no matter what he may have said about wanting to be in Detroit.

If he really wants to be here why dont they have a deal done? They have had plenty of time to get it done yet nobody seems to talk about that. If they really wanted to they could easily hammer out a deal before the first pick of the draft is made Thursday. If something isnt in the works here then its just piss poor mgmt on the part of the Lions.

His trade value plummets once the draft is over because not only will the Lions have handed him even more leverage from his negotiating position but also all the leverage in trying to work out a trade to the other teams in the league to low ball in a huge way. If he refuses to work out a new deal with a potential trade suitor, and the franchise tag would be the only option available to an acquiring team, he may not garner an offer better than the conditional pick. How pissed will Lions fans be if that happens?

 

[Gulf of Brazil]

Both Stafford and Suh were given too much money. DT is not as high an impact as CB or OLB/DE. I do not wish to ay any DT that kind of money even if he was the best that ever lived. The position does not require it.

That is true when looking at rookie original contracts. The problem I have with Mayhew/Lewand is giving Stafford that 51 mil extension last year when it should have been a prove it year to earn it. Those two jumped the gun trying to secure Stafford as the QB when they would have had "the leverage" on a smaller $-wise contract waiting till the end of the year. They did free up some $ by extending him but that could have been done elsewhere. Stafford is NOT worthy of 17 mil per year, IMO, but I'm sure many will state it is fair market value and how under-paid he is when comparing other QB's to him.

I totally agree with you on the DT talk alone whether it's Suh, McCoy, Atkins or whomever.

Look at last years draft with Carolina taking DT's with their 1st and 2nd rd picks. Now, Lotulelei and Short are not Suh, they both provide an impact for DE's Johnson and Hardy. The NYJets draft Sheldon Richardson (Missouri DT who BTW had the most tackles on that team) and he ends up being the Defensive Rookie of the Year. Simply put, quality DT's can be had in a draft that provide an impact. Just like in this years draft DT Donald "Projects to be" exactly that and he would come for a helluva lot cheaper for the next 5 years (by picking up his 5th year "club option".

 

[Thruthefog]

I realize I am greatly in the minority here and also that my salary cap rants to some are annoying/aggravating/confusing/stupid/wish he would just shut the fuck up/and often way too long. That's probably why they are rarely even responded to. At the same time I believe them to be factual representations of where our team stands on a critical component of long term success.

I don't know what amount he is asking for, but I do think its pretty obvious it must be quite a bit more than the Lions are willing to pay otherwise we would have a deal done already due to how important it is. Simply assuming that we will be able to sign him at any point after the draft up until the trade deadline is an enormous risk IMO, no matter what he may have said about wanting to be in Detroit.

If he really wants to be here why dont they have a deal done? They have had plenty of time to get it done yet nobody seems to talk about that. If they really wanted to they could easily hammer out a deal before the first pick of the draft is made Thursday. If something isnt in the works here then its just piss poor mgmt on the part of the Lions.

His trade value plummets once the draft is over because not only will the Lions have handed him even more leverage from his negotiating position but also all the leverage in trying to work out a trade to the other teams in the league to low ball in a huge way. If he refuses to work out a new deal with a potential trade suitor, and the franchise tag would be the only option available to an acquiring team, he may not garner an offer better than the conditional pick. How pissed will Lions fans be if that happens?

(1) I don't respond to posts I agree with very often.

(2) I defer to you when it comes to information regarding the cap. (I always defer to people who know more about the subject than I. The ego can prevent one from learning.)

 

[lionstop1]

Dr Eviler, some of the posters probably think this is stuff you have no idea about. Thats why you dont get many responses. I'm fully aware of everything you've displayed here.