Off-Season Priority #1: Calvin's Contract

I know it’s been discussed, I just hadn’t seen the actual numbers laid out like that – if they had I apologize. I just thought it would be good to get it to the forefront with all the “we should get this guy or that” talk happening now.

The guy pretty much opens with how he doesn’t want to have to write about the Lions, but is being forced to because we were good this season. Then he goes on to discuss only the nuclear options for the Lions.

Personally, I think the players want to win on this team with a little less money rather than get a payday and languish on a 6-10 Redskins team. Most of these guys were here when we were bad and they know the part they played in getting us to the top. I know CJ will get top money. If he has a 15 mil number to beat, I think we will do it without having to pay 22 million a year.

Same with the other guys. Didn’t Staff take a paycut already? Do you think that CJ wants to get paid a couple dollars more to get balls thrown at him by Tavaris Jackson or Rex Grossman? He lived though that in 2008. I can see guys like Avril get paid without getting the FA premium for going to a crap team and try to do another rebuilding project.

In the end, I trust Mayhew to work this out and cut the guys we can live without and pay the guys we need.

1) find a legit franchise that is manged well from the top down (check)
2) get star players to take a slight discount so there is more quality on the team across the board (semi check)
3) draft well to continue to replenish the talent at a discount (check)

Well we at least have 2 out of 3 going for us now, in some ways we have players at a discount. Guys like Wright and Tulloch took less to come here. Guys like KVB, Burleson, and Stafford restructured to keep others here. In the long run, I believe it will all work out.

If you read the article its 120% of the last years salary. At 23 million a year his salary for 2013 will be 27.6 million then in 2014 it goes up to 33.1 million. That would kill our salary cap. We can not as a team pay that much for a player.

if it doesn’t, those last couple years will be rough – especially since Calvin will be on the downside of his career at that point. He’ll certainly earn those dollars in the preceding years though so it will even out.

either way something creative like you propose is the most likely way to keep him in the fold and be able to actually put a team around him for the next few years.

but I understand the thought process here. Building a good team is more of an accounting masterpiece than I think most fans understand. Back before the salary cap it was just about accumulating as much talent as possible, but now you have to get the best talent for the dollar. Don’t get me wrong, I would be very sad to see CJ go, and it would definitely be a dicey situation to make such a huge change to our offense (which finally seems to be working, largely do to CJ). But I think what most fans have to ask themselves honestly, “Is Calvin Johnson the best value dollar for dollar to this team?” The answer will come down to how cap friendly his next contract will be.

As you see from my comment above about his contract numbers that could work. He will get a 10 year 180 million dollar contract. That would be the largest contract ever for a NFL Player. Only Manning’s contract would be at a higher per year salary. We can do this early before the rise in player salary will only increase our costs. The simple fact of the matter is trading him will only hurt this team and put us out of the playoffs for next year. Plus how many teams are going to be able afford a 20 million a year player.

but I think the Lions have grown beyond having to sacrifice top tier talent in order to plug a plethora of holes. Good teams don’t sell talent to plug holes, they build around talent, which is I think what Mayhew has done in the past 3 years. Sure, we still have holes, but Calvin is arguably the best player in football and I think trading him will set the franchise back to where we were a year or two ago (i.e. a promising team with a lot of young talent but unable to get to the next level).

I think you are better off doing like 2 first rounders and three second rounders.

the fact is we’re never sniffing the SB without CJ unless our Defense suddenly becomes DRASTICALLY better. Which I don’t see happening within one offseason. It should be better, but we’ll need to continue to ride this top 5 offense for a while and the 9>81 connection if we’re to have any immediate chance of SB talk IMO

Which to me doesn’t mean much, so we’re even.

That is far too much riding on one players shoulders. 3500-4000 is more than enough along with 2000-2500 yards on the ground.

Hell I’d like to see him sitting around the 3600 range. This will mean we actually have a real running game and a balanced attack. This will spring our receivers to man on man coverage. This will keep defenses honest. We will see defenses puttting 8 men in the box to stop our running game and then rip their secondary apart with the pass. Play action will be able to be utilized. I never want to see us throwing for over 5k again.

I agree with your assessment TL.

But to just call it crazy, or insane, or whatever my thoughts were called by some, is just not very well thought through criticism. I don’t want to see Calvin go either, but I also don’t want to see the team flounder under cap restraints and have the same discussion about the D next season because we can’t sign top flight talent due to money issues stemming from Calvin’s contract.