ALLEN PARK — The NFL is a crazy place where anything can happen on any given Sunday. But there are some certainties too. The grass is green, the lines are white, touchdowns are worth six points and the salary cap always goes up.
This year, though, that’s changing.
The salary cap is expected to decline this year, something that’s happened only when the league was emerging from the lockout in 2011. That’s it. Otherwise the cap has gone up every year, and gone up by a lot in recent years. The cap increased by at least $10 million each of the last seven years. Last year, it climbed by exactly $10 million to $198.2 million.
But then the pandemic hit, dealing a blow to the league’s financial picture. Now the cap could fall as low as $180 million in 2021, a record contraction of $18.2 million. The NFL just has never seen something like this since adopting the cap back in 1994, and it will have ramifications across the league in ways both known and not.
The Lions are trying to prepare for all contingencies until the league finally settles on a cap.
“Obviously there’s some uncertainty in terms of what that will be,” new general manager Brad Holmes said this week. “From our planning standpoint, we’ve actually been weighing every single scenario from the most optimistic scenario, what it would be, to the worst-case scenario. So, it goes back to the process and the planning stages in terms of how it works. I will say that (vice president of football administration) Mike Disner has been excellent in terms of his expertise in the salary cap and working with Dan (Campbell) and myself and working through those areas. He’s made the process probably as seamless as it could have been in terms of his utilization and how he sees it and it fitting to how we are planning on building the team. A lot of credit goes to Mike Disner with the cap situation.”
The Lions’ cap situation isn’t the worst in the league, but it’s hardly the best either, and the shrinking camp will leave them with a lot of work to do heading into free agency. The club will save $6.1 million by moving on from veteran cornerback Desmond Trufant, but still has about $193 million worth of commitments for 2021. That includes quarterback Jared Goff, who can officially join the team on March 17.
That means worst-case scenario, the cap is set at $180 million and the Lions are $13 million over the limit with decisions still to make on who to sign in free agency. They also have a major decision to make on star receiver Kenny Golladay, who is eligible to become a free agent in 13 days. The Lions could use the franchise tag on him, but that would cost another $16 million, and require even more moves to get their roster in financial shape.
Asked whether the potential fluctuation in the cap could affect Detroit’s decision to use the franchise tag, Holmes said “we are making plans and using our process in terms of going through every single scenario from what would be, like you said, the floor to what the highest probably could be. So it’s just making sure that we’re prepared that anything that might come about. But it hasn’t really affected (us) in terms of what our utilization will be on (the franchise tag).”
Holmes came up through the Los Angeles Rams’ scouting department, where he worked on the college side, including serving as college scouting director for the last eight years. So this is his first real foray into free agency and the pro side of things, although the collaborative approach used by L.A. allowed him to at least get a taste of how things worked.
He also hired Ray Agnew as his assistant general manager. Agnew served as Los Angeles’ pro scouting director the last four years, and adds some valuable experience to the top levels of the front office.
“Ray was joking with me the other day in terms of the amount of detail that we put into the free agency process,” Holmes said. “He even has alluded to that’s been a little bit different. That’s just the only way that I know in terms of how to go about player acquisition, is to not leave any stone unturned. Whether it’s been with how it’s going to work with the salary cap and cash-spending, that’s all been actually a fun part of it in terms of the player acquisition process and the evaluation process and seeing what players really, really fit and what players fit within the salary cap structure. (That has) been a fun part of the free agency process.”
The Lions have so much work to do in the early days of this rebuild, but don’t expect them to be big spenders in free agency. They remain years away from competitiveness and want to build the foundation of the team through the draft.
“Whoever we bring in here, when it comes to you’re talking about the draft or even free agency, it needs to be somebody we love, you know?” Campbell said. “Somebody that we all feel like there’s almost a unanimous decision that we love this guy. ‘This guy can help us, we know who this guy is, we know what he’s about, we know what his fit is, we know what his role is,’ because that’s just as important. What is the fit? This guy, he can be one of the greatest players you’ve ever seen, but if he doesn’t fit us, we don’t know what to do with him. We don’t know where to put him, it does us no good. That’s where we’re at right now. Those are the rules and so we’ll make a go of it.”
