It seems like a perfect fit. The Detroit Lions are a team on the way up, who have a very good offense missing one key component. A very good running back to help them gain yards on the ground. The Jacksonville Jaguars are a team beginning a rebuild project with a new owner, they could use a good player or extra draft picks to further their rebuilding effort. RB Maurice Jones-Drew is currently in the fourth week of a hold out, and word is beginning to leak that he would accept a trade to somewhere new. The Lions seem like a perfect fit. If it wasn’t for their short term Salary Cap issues.
The Lions have three players on their roster who were taken with the top two picks in the draft, and that were drafted before the rookie wage scale was put in to affect. It seems reasonable that they should get some kind of credit for that, but hey the payroll is what it is and they have to deal with it. The problem with making a run at MJD is salary cap space. If the team were to include DE Cliff Avril (on a one year deal worth just north of 10 million bucks) in a potential trade it would seem that MJD’s new contract could be worked to fit the current cap situation in Detroit.
However, this team has twice reworked QB Matthew Stafford’s deal, and Ndamukong Suh is approaching the end of his rookie deal. Both will be free agents in two years, and the team will likely want to lock those two players up long term, eating up cap space, but insuring the players they drafted are with the team for the foreseeable future. Once those deal are reached, and after the 2012 and 2013 season the cap situation gets a heck of a lot better for the Lions.
Let’s go back to Avril for a moment. The Lions do have Willie Young who so far in pre-season has been a beast. He could easily repalce Avril if need be. However, after 2013 the aging veteran Kyle Vanden Bosch will be gone, and the team will either have to draft another DE, or develop another later round pick to be the starter there. That may make Avril, who will want a long term deal after 2012, more valuable to the Lions. It of course will eat up even more cap space.
While the Lions and MJD would be a match potentially made in heaven, these is very little salary wiggle room for this team right now. Since he would require the Lions to give up an asset in a trade, and then they would have to meet his salary demands it would seem the price is too high for the team to pay currently.
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