Detroit Lions Give Darius Slay Four-Year Extension

The expected contract extension between the Detroit Lions and Darius Slay has come to be as the young corner is now under contract through 2020.

Detroit Lions cornerback Darius Slay was set to make $976,269 in the last year of his rookie deal. That’s a nice sum of money in the real world but in the world of high-level NFL cornerbacks, it’s a bargain.

Slay has developed into one of the league’s best young corners so interest from the Lions to extend his deal beyond this season was a no-brainer. Thanks to a willingness from Slay’s side as well, the two were widely expected to get an extension done this summer and that has now come to fruition.

Tacking on four years beyond this season means the Lions have Slay locked up through the 2020 season and it comes at an averge annual value right at, or perhaps even a little below, expectation.

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The Lions officially announced the deal shortly after reports, with Bob Quinn offering the following comment via press release:

"“Darius earned this extension, and we are happy to reward him accordingly,” Lions Executive Vice President and General Manager Bob Quinn said. “We also are pleased to have finalized this now so the team and Darius can focus on the start of training camp and preparation for the upcoming season.”"

The contract breakdown has not been released yet but using Marvin Jones‘ contract as an example, we can expect that Slay’s deal will have relatively even cap hits over the life of the deal.

The benefit to the extension with Slay is that any signing bonus money is spread out over the life of the deal, so even though Slay was already under contract for this season, 2016 can be used to start picking up some of the signing bonus cap hit.

This might sounds like accounting minutiae but it is quite profound from the way the Lions operated under the old front office. Mega-extentions with the likes of Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford were partly motivated by the need to push out cap hits (kicking the can down the road), but the opposite happens in Slay’s case.

By extending Slay with one cheap year left on his rookie deal, the Lions have the ability to start absorbing some of the cap hit now before the extension kicks in next season. That means smaller cap charges later on.

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With the contract done, Slay can step on the field for the first practice of training camp with a $23 million guarantee instead of a one-year contract worth a little under $1 million. Not bad, Darius, not bad at all.