Contract escalators bump base salaries for Matthew Stafford, Ndamukong Suh

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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