Trade, or cut Cory Williams and Nate burleson and KVB

I guess by that, I mean none. Nobody will want their contracts either.

Nate is the one of the three that I would keep. His 2012 CAP hit is the lowest of the three at $4M, versus $5M [KVB] and $6M [Corey]. He is still a pretty productive guy who has no replacement on the roster right now, unlike the other two [KVB – Lawrence J, and Fairly or Sammie Lee for Corey].

I would prefer to keep both KVB and Corey at a reduced cost, but that could be very tough.

Not much more to day about this.

Corey I can part with him. KVB is a nice asset but is way over paid we need to get his number down. Nate I love but I would like to see Titus opposite Calvin with Nate in the slot.

but getting rid of quality starters for crap shoot late round picks is absurd IMO. That’s just playing really bad odds. I don’t think it’s Mayhew’s style, in fact I’d say it’s the opposite of his style…

Look even if you can’t trade them, where is the money coming from? these players are good, and I like all three. With that being said this isn’t baseball. where is the money going to come from?

I would keep everyone on the roster minus Mourice Morris.

The Lions have already signed Corey WIlliams, KVB, and Nate to contracts. When those contracts were signed, they all received signing bonuses. That signing bonus is them spread out over multiple years of the contract in order to make the salary cap hit smaller. Currently the outstanding money on those bonuses is:

Kyle Vanden Bosch: $4.6 million (or $5.1 million if he makes it to his roster bonus this season).
Nate Burleson: about $3 million over three years.
Corey Williams: No outstanding bonus left.

Now what you may not realize is when a team cuts a player that has outstanding money left on their signing bonuses to amortize, they have to write off all of that outstanding amount in the year they are cut. This is called dead cap money in the terms of the CBA. So you will not save as much as you think.

So here are the real numbers.

Kyle Vanden Bosch: 2012 cap hit is $7,730,000 so if you cut him you would save about $2.7 million if you did it early and about $2.2 million if you did it after you paid his roster bonus for this year.

Nate Burleson: His cap hit for 2012 is just under $5 million. So if you cut him you would save about $2 million on the cap.

Corey Williams is the only guy out of the three that would save you any substantial cap money because he has already had his singing bonus written off. If I remember correctly, that is because he signed in the 2010 season which was an uncapped year. So the Lions just wrote all of the bonus off in that season.

So if you cut all three you would get roughly $10 million in cap space. Not the nearly $18 million that you might think.

So what would you do to replace these three players with that $10 million?

LINK: http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/detroit-lions/corey-williams/

From the above summary, he still is getting paid a bonus. Just over $1M.

But I agree with you TL that these guys are all valuable contributors to the Lions success, and that the Lions will need to replace them all with guys who can play. These are three starters right now.
I am not saying it is impossible, or even that it will be extremely difficult. It is just not going to be easy. How much gets saved and what level of play you will get from their replacements is very much unknown.

But also remember that the cap savings next year would be substantial. Also 2 of the three have replacemnts on the roster already in SLH and Lo Jack. With that being said i’m not saying this is feasable just throwing my two cents at it.

To be “quality”? Maybe, but I wouldn’t. Not with SLH and Failey.

maybe I’m a sadist. But I think it is hilarious; the gnashing of teeth that goes on when we draft certain positions. So I would fall out of my chair laughing if we drafted someone like Sanu in round one and traded Burleson.

Although I really like Nate, I could see it being an option. There has to be a price in coming back from 0-16 so quickly, and broken hearts are inevitable.

I can see the headline now, “Mohamed Sanu in round one and Doug Martin in round two; mental health facilities overwhelmed in Michigan.”

Just kidding Mayhew; Draft Konz or Mercilus.

KVB- probably entering his last year of playing and probably wants his last pay year he knows for sure he’ll have on this level. Not to mention if Avril goes need depth for sure.

Nate- his cap hit isnt that much but he’s also not expendable at this point. unless they can draft another WR in the later rounds who can play right away. Young will eventually pass Burleson if he didnt already last year as he’s very similar yet younger but after him you have no one if CJ goes down.

Cwill is only expendable if Cliff stays otherwise what was once your strength now becomes your weakness.

this front office has one heck of a job to do this year in the off season especially after such a great turn around and finally getting the team back in the right direction including an appearance in the playoffs. To me this is the year that Mayhew and co. will truly earn his “grade”. They used to have 3-5 years for coaches to truly get settled in and get their personnel right I think if you take where the lions are they are right on that hump where some hard decisions on how to continue to be consistent come in.

Williams has a tiny amount, 6th would be max, and Nate is worth something to the right team, but again, 5th would be max.. and unlikely.

That being said, if all you can get is very late round picks, why not just keep them?