ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter brought some national cognizance to what those of us in the Lions media have known and reported for several weeks now: Pro Bowl cornerback Darius Slay could be traded this offseason.
There is something new and quite noteworthy in Schefter’s tweeted report. He states that the team acquiring Slay will need to compensate him with a new contract as implied terms of trading for him. That is significant on a couple of levels.
First, it takes away the risk from a team trading for Slay that he’s just a one-year rental. Slay’s contract is up at the end of the 2020 season and he eagerly seeks more money. That’s why the Lions would have interest in trading him — they know what he wants and don’t intend to give it to him, so they would get something in return.
Slay’s camp mandating that a new deal by the new team is part of the trade actually helps the Lions. They can boldly ask for more in return because the new team has insurance that Slay will be there longterm.
Secondly, the more public acknowledgment of the Lions actively listening to calls (again, this is not anything new or profound) ramps up any potential market. If a team really covets Slay and is willing to meet his lofty contract demands, the pressure to get it done before anyone else does just escalated. That helps the Lions maximize the return on any trade involving Slay.
We still don’t know if Slay will be traded or not. We still don’t know what the exact desired compensation is for either Slay’s contract demands or the Lions’ trade demands. We just know now that the rest of the NFL world is more acutely aware of the possibility that Slay will not be in Detroit in 2020 or beyond.
