The Detroit Lions and new quarterback Jared Goff have agreed to restructure Goff’s contract, per ESPN’s Field Yates.
Goff and the Lions converted $20 million of his $26.5 million base salary for the 2021 season into a signing bonus. Doing so frees up some major salary cap room for 2021 while pushing more dead money onto the ledger for the subsequent seasons. The $20 million bonus gets amortized over the remaining four years of the contract, so it’s an additional $5 million cap obligation due each season through 2024.
For practical purposes, it ensures Goff will be with the Lions through at least the 2022 season. His dead cap figure for the 2022 campaign now tops $20 million. Even with a steep increase in the NFL salary cap, that’s a big pill to swallow. Then again, the Rams and Eagles both paid over $24 million in dead cap to dump quarterbacks (Goff and Carson Wentz) this offseason.
The Lions have converted $20M of Jared Goff’s salary into a signing bonus, creating $15M in cap space for 2021.
This move will add $5M cap charges to Goff’s deal over the 2022-2024 season, while Detroit gets operating room for the rest of this offseason.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) March 24, 2021
The full details of the restructure are not yet available. Detroit has recently re-worked contracts with LB Jamie Collins and DT Nick Williams, and Collins’ new deal featured voidable years to help spread out the bonus impact on the salary cap.