Ndamukong Suh is considering representing himself when he and the Lions discuss a contract extension. This comes after firing his agency Relativity Sports and failing to hire a new one, despite reported talks with Jay-Z and Roc Nation.
One other guy toying w/ idea of representing himself (with some guidance from others, including Roc Nation) is Ndamukong Suh. We’ll see.
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) March 4, 2014
Suh is in the final year of his rookie contract that will net him over 22.4 million dollars in total compensation, including his base salary of 12.55 million dollars. He also has the largest cap hit in professional football for a non quarterback.
Suh the player is worth every penny that he is owed and deserves to be paid top money for his position. The cap number for 2014 is crippling the Lions though, especially because of the large amounts of cash spent on Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford. You may not consider Suh to be worth the potential headache, but on the field, his impact is worth the money.
And For those of you that want the Lions to explore a trade for Suh, good luck with that. Nobody else in the NFL has that sort of cap space to take on his contract, and would require the Lions to extend Suh first before trading him in order to get his cap number down. Thirteen NFL teams currently have enough cap space to absorb the hit, but most of those teams have major players of their own that they haven’t re-signed yet, and the cap space is only temporary. Essentially only three or four teams could absorb the hit, but likely won’t have enough to offer in return. The Jaguars, Browns, Colts, and Raiders are the best financial fits, but are more than a defensive tackle away from being relevant. They are all young teams that covet the young, cheap players and draft picks more than a damn good defensive tackle, that likely wouldn’t re-sign with them anyway.
Suh will be a Lion in 2014, just will he be after the 2014 season, and will he sign an extension before the season?
What about addressing other areas on the team with Suh in the fold?
Eric Decker, a fan favorite potential free agent signing Everyone in football knows that the Lions are in a bind and half to extend Suh to be cap solvent. They are expected to be between 8 and 10 million below the cap, but with the amount of holes to fill, that isn’t enough money to spend to fill all of them. Say an extension for Suh opens up another 8 million in cap space, then the Lions can justify spending that 8 million on wide receiver Eric Decker to fill the number two receiver role instead of spending a first round pick on yet another receiver. The money could also be used to pursue a replacement for Louis Delmas at Free Safety, re-signing or replacing tight end Brandon Pettigrew, or keeping running back Joique Bell in the fold.
