Lions restructure Reggie Bush's contract, according to report

The Detroit Lions have restructured the contract of running back Reggie Bush, according to Tom Pelissero. Just like they did with safety Glover Quin in August, this is a simple restructure, meaning the Lions converted some of his base salary for 2014 into a bonus that will be spread over the final seasons of his contract.

Assuming the Lions followed the same setup from the Quin restructure, this move should free up around $1.76 million in cap space for 2014, according to Over The Cap's cap calculator. In 2015 and 2016, the final two years of Bush's contract with the Lions, his cap numbers should see an increase of $881,667.

Why exactly did the Lions feel the need to create extra cap space? I'm assuming it has to do with all of the injuries they've had to deal with so far this season. Everybody on their team counts against the salary cap, including Corey Hilliard, Bill Bentley and Nevin Lawson, who are on injured reserve after suffering season-ending injuries. With more and more players counting against the cap, my assumption is that they simply wanted to create a bigger cushion just in case additional injuries happen in the coming weeks and months.

If it turns out that the Lions didn't actually need that extra cap room, they can simply carry it over to 2015. So although they are once again kicking the can down the road by restructuring Bush's contract, the cap space they created could actually end up being used next year rather than in 2014.