Pride of Detroit
New contract details are out, and it gives a look into how much the Detroit Lions value some of their free agent signings.
The next batch of Detroit Lions contract details are in, and they offer a little more perspective on the team’s overall roster and the chances these players end up making an impact on the 2025 season. By looking at overall contract terms—and more specifically, guaranteed money—you can get a sense whether these players will make the 53-man roster, have a critical role, or would be fighting just to make the team during training camp.
So here’s a quick look at some of the latest numbers and what it means for that players’ 2025 season.
Note: All contract details are via OverTheCap.
Reynolds entered free agency as a restricted free agent, meaning the Lions could have offered him a tender, but that would’ve cost the Lions $3.3 million at a minimum. Instead, the Lions re-signed him for essentially one-third of that.
There is essentially no guaranteed money in Reynolds’ deal, although he’ll pocket $75,000 as long as he appears during the Lions’ offseason program. But with Jahmyr Gibbs, David Montgomery, and Sione Vaki all locks to make the roster, Reynolds’ spot on the roster is far from guaranteed, despite the fact that he has been the team’s RB3 for the past few years.
Skipper’s contract is a slight bump in pay from last year ($1.15 million), although part of that is simply mandated by the vet minimum salary of $1.255 million he’s receiving for being in the NFL at least seven seasons. Still, he also gets a modest signing bonus, and when combined with his workout bonus, he’ll end up bringing in $100,000. However, this does not exactly look like guaranteed OT3 money. If you wanted to jump to conclusions here, it could be a good sign that Giovanni Manu took some strides in his rookie season behind the scenes and could be ready to take on the primary backup role. I need to see a little more on the practice field before I make that assumption.
The Lions are able to keep Skipper’s cap number low due to the NFL’s Veteran Salary Benefit, which notes that if you sign a player to a minimum salary with at least $167,500 available in incentives (the Lions matched that number exactly), the salary of that deal will only hit the cap based on the minimum salary of a second-year player ($1.03 million).
While Muhammad has the...
