Just like 2012, the Detroit Lions are going to be working with little to no cap room in 2013. Because of various big contracts, there just isn't a whole lot of flexibility right now, and there won't really be any wiggle room until the Lions get quarterback Matthew Stafford a new deal. This especially becomes important with Stafford's base salary rising $500,000 thanks to him triggering an escalator in his contract. Dave Birkett reports that Stafford now has a cap hit of $20.82 million for 2013.

Another contract eating up a lot of cap space is that of Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. Like Stafford, he also triggered an escalator in his contract for his play last season.

@davebirkett Suh's cap number should be $18,172,500 since he hit a $1 million base salary escalator for being named 2nd team All-NFL (AP).

— Joel Corry (@corryjoel) January 26, 2013

In addition to this, Lions tight end Brandon Pettigrew got an $800,000 bump, according to Birkett. This leaves the Lions a projected $5 million over the 2013 salary cap. Needless to say, they're not in a very good situation right now. The Lions desperately need to get a new deal done with Stafford to reduce his cap number and free up space.

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