The Lions will reportedly carry a salary cap hit of roughly $9.7 million in 2015 for defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. Suh, of course, no longer plays for Detroit, which makes the cap charge both costly and inglorious.
Nevertheless, Suh will be off the Lions’ cap by 2016. And the Lions won’t be footing the bill for his new deal, which includes nearly $60 million in guarantees.
And while it hurt to lose a blue-chip player in Suh, Detroit might have regretted giving the defensive tackle the contract he received from Miami, Lions General Manager Martin Mayhew told reporters Monday.
“I think in the long term, I think we’re going to be glad we don’t have that contract on our books,” Mayhew said, according to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “But in the short term, that’s an issue.”
Mayhew has a good chance at being right about Suh’s deal. By the third year of the contract, Suh will be 30, and he will likely have more than 100 regular season games to his credit.
Mayhew adjusted well to Suh’s then-pending departure earlier this month, acquiring defensive tackle Haloti Ngata from Baltimore at the outset of free agency. If Detroit’s retooled interior line holds up, and if the club uses its salary cap space wisely now and in the future, Mayhew could ultimately be lauded for his decision-making. But the final tally won’t come for several years.
