Willie Young's new contract worth less than RFA tender

It turns out that Detroit Lions defensive end Willie Young is only going to make $1.5 million in 2013 on his new one-year deal, according to Dave Birkett. This is significantly less than what Young was set to make from the second-round RFA tender that was extended to him earlier in the offseason. Had he simply signed that tender, he would have had a salary of $2.023 million for the 2013 season.

So why exactly did Young end up with a smaller deal? It's not exactly clear. I highly, highly doubt Young voluntarily took less money, so this looks like a situation where the Lions may have changed their mind on what they wanted to give Young. As noted by Birkett, the Lions had the leverage in this situation.

Teams can withdraw tender, player then free agent RT @thegurmanminhas: why would he agree to this rather than tender? He's getting paid less

— Dave Birkett (@davebirkett) April 16, 2013

Again, it's not clear what happened here, but the Lions saved some money and cap space by signing Young to a one-year deal rather than having him sign his tender. And on the bright side for Young, he got a $300,000 signing bonus out of his one-year deal.