Why Trey Hendrickson to the Lions may be more financially realistic than it first appeared
if the Lions can get the deal done this way, it’s worth a look
Look, I know what I did earlier this week. I wrote a story about how the Detroit Lions need to be a little more picky about who they bring on at edge rusher.
That was before I knew what I know now. Essentially, the thought process was that signing Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson would be a bad way to go, considering that he’d probably want a great deal of money, and he’s an older player. What I know now is that Hendrickson’s deal is not going to be as big as I previously thought.
Trey Hendrickson is affordable for the Lions and makes sense for them IF they do things right
The Athletic’s Daniel Popper put together a very impressive layout of the NFL’s top 150 free agents this week, and Hendrickson is the NFL’s top free agent on this ranking. Popper suggests that Hendrickson’s next deal could be a three-year $99 million contract. That’s not cheap, but it’s not as high as previously expected. This would make Hendrickson the 10th-highest-paid edge rusher in the NFL.
Now, the Lions would obviously have to clear some cap space to get this done, and the expectation is that they will do what the Kansas City Chiefs just did with Patrick Mahomes and restructure his deal to open up $40 million plus. There are other things the Lions can do to open up some cash, and they may or may not do those things. Goff’s restructure alone opens up the money necessary.
With that said, if the Lions are going to do this, it’s going to require that they make the deal as friendly as possible. Based on the way they’ve been doing contracts lately, you can see how they can do that. The idea is to give out a lot of guaranteed money. In this scenario, $60 million of that $99 million would be guaranteed. And you’re going to pay a lot of that up front. Here’s a breakdown of the deal:
| Year | Base Salary | Prorated Bonus | Cap Hit | Dead Cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | $2,000,000 | $15,000,000 | $17,000,000 | $45,000,000 |
| 2027 | $6,000,000 (guaranteed) | $15,000,000 | $21,000,000 | $30,000,000 |
| 2028 | $46,000,000 | $15,000,000 | $61,000,000 | $15,000,000 |
Ok, let’s take a look under the hood here. This is what the Lions like to do. You push the dead cap up front, and that way, you can still have lower cap hits. This makes it so the Lions can still go out and sign some other players this offseason, and they’ll have wiggle room to get other things done and still have the excess cash they like to have.
This would also help the Lions get out of the deal early if they wanted to or needed to. Hendrickson will be 32 years old at the end of the season. Theoretcially you can get two more good years out of him, and then after 2027, you can part with him and not have to pay that $61 million cap hit in 2028, and you’ll get some solid cap savings there as well.
So, if the Lions can get Hendrickson under a deal like this and have it structured in this way, it’s doable. I still believe the Lions’ best move at edge would be to bring back Al-Quadin Muhammad and draft one of the draft’s better edge rushers with the 17th pick. But this is certainly something that can be done.
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