Well, didn’t see that one coming. After 10 years with the Detroit Lions, left tackle Taylor Decker has requested and has been granted his release.

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This is a bit of a shock since Decker just announced that he planned not to retire during the NFL Combine just a couple of weeks ago. It appears the Lions and Decker were in discussions about a restucture of his contract, and those discussions fell through. Now he’ll play elsewhere in 2026.

Now that it over, Lions fans are going to want to know how much money the team is going to save with this retirement. Here’s what it looks like:

The Lions will save about $11.6 million in cap space after Decker’s release

So, there you go. It’s not an exorbitant amount, but it’s not a little bit of money either. The big win is that they don’t have a $24 million cap hit for him in 2027, and they didn’t have to restructure his deal to lower that hit. The Lions will still owe him $9 million as part of his signing bonus, but that’s not much, and it doesn’t affect the cap. This move also brings the Lions under the cap just in time for free agency. It’s not expected to be the last move they do to get more savings.

So the Lions will be able to spend that money in free agency, and it can help them fill spots on the offensive line. As far as finding the Lions’ next left tackle, the expectation is that they will look to the draft, where there could be as many as eight starting-caliber tackles going in the first two rounds.

The other thought is that one of those tackles might actually be Penei Sewell’s replacement, with the idea of moving the All-Pro to left tackle similar to what the Buccaneers did with Tristan Wirfs.