Following all the roster cutdowns and player movement, the Detroit Lions were faced with a minor salary cap issue. Detroit had nudged above the NFL’s salary cap limit.
Not any longer. The Lions freed up $4.5 million in cap space by making an adjustment to left tackle Taylor Decker’s contract. Detroit converted $6 million of Decker’s $14.75 million base salary into a signing bonus, per Field Yates of ESPN.
It’s a fairly common salary cap manipulation around the NFL. The move puts the Lions back under the $208.2 million cap, though that figure fluctuates from team to team based on rollover from prior seasons. The Lions were roughly $1.9 million over the cap prior to reworking Decker’s deal.
Decker signed a four-year, $60 million contract extension prior to the 2020 season. The deal runs through the 2024 season.
