Jared Goff can help the Lions save millions to retain Detroit's top talent

AtoZ Sports

Mike Payton discusses how the Lions could restructure QB Jared Goff’s contract by leveraging his void year and opening up millions of dollars to pay for contract extensions for Detroit’s top tier talent

Transcript

00:00There is a little addition in Jared Goff's contract that you would probably barely notice,

00:04but it changes everything for this team when it comes to these big extensions. Let's talk about it.

00:14Hi, this is Mike Payton from A to Z Sports Detroit. Today, we're going to talk about how a little

00:17addition in Jared Goff's contract changes everything when it comes to needing to sign

00:22these big extensions. As we know, the Lions have Jamison Williams, Aiden Hutchinson,

00:27Jameer Gibbs, Sam Laporta, Brian Branch, Jack Campbell. All these guys are going to get paid

00:34very soon. The bills come and due on all of them, and they're not going to be cheap. We're talking

00:39about contracts that are going to be near the top of the league, and the Lions are just going to have

00:45to pay these things out if they want to keep these guys. It's that simple. One way that they can make

00:50things super easy is to go into Jared Goff's contract, and you will see that there is one

00:56additional year in which there is no money attached, no signing bonus attached, no dead

01:03cap attached, no nothing. You can see right here, it is just nothing. It is a void year. Now, most of

01:08the time when you see a void year, a void year has some sort of money in it, has some sort of money

01:14attached to it. Jared Goff's doesn't. And the reason that it doesn't is because they want to do it

01:20later. And later for the Lions would be 2026, when all these extensions are going to come due.

01:27And this would also be Jared Goff's biggest cap hit of his new extension that he signed last summer.

01:33So here's what it would look like if the Lions were to go ahead and do that restructure and get

01:41some money out of it, basically. And it's huge. So a simple restructure, not adding any additional

01:46void years or anything like that, just keeping his contract, looking the way that it is, a restructure

01:52would turn his base salary into $13.7 million. And it would save the Lions $40.2 million. That's

02:03$40.2 million. That's not an exaggerated number. That's $40 million that they would save just off

02:11doing an extension next year. Now, if they did it with max void years, that would be adding additional

02:16void years. That would be four more void years that would basically keep Jared Goff's contract

02:21on the books for four more years. Even if he's not on the team anymore, that would turn his base

02:28salary into $1.3 million in 2026. And then he would wind up saving the Lions $42 million.

02:35So it's just a little bit extra. Honestly, if it's me, I don't see why you do the max void years.

02:42Maybe you could add one extra one, but I think you're fine with just having the one that you have

02:46now. Change the base salary a little bit down to $13 million. That's not that bad. And then save $40

02:53million in order to help get all these guys signed. It's unbelievable what you could do with this

03:00contract and how the Lions are going to be able to shift things around. And don't be surprised if

03:04some of these guys that they signed to extensions also have void years in their contracts so they could

03:09spread their money out a little bit. I'm just saying there may be a way that the Lions could sign

03:13all these guys, keep them all under contract, and then maybe still have some money left over to sign

03:19free agents and do more things. It was looking bleak for a little while that this could all happen.

03:24But once you dig into the numbers a little bit, you could see that it really can. So we'll see what

03:29happens after the 2025 season. But this is a big, big thing that the Lions are going to need to utilize.

03:36We'll talk to you next time.

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