Getting a long-term deal done with Ndamukong Suh is obviously the best result for the Lions, but it appears they’re prepared to use every available resource at their disposal to keep him.
There are two sides to the conversation when it comes to the Detroit Lions’ desire to re-sign All-Pro defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh.
There are those who think he’s a must-sign this offseason. They think Suh is the single most valuable commodity to a defense that ended the year ranked No. 1 against the run, No. 2 overall and No. 3 in scoring.
Then there’s the flip side of the conversation. There are some who think the money saved on not signing Suh could be better spent spread around the roster to upgrade multiple areas.
The only group of people who truly matter in the conversation are the ones deciding to negotiate the contract or not, and the Lions front office is firmly entrenched in the first group.
“He certainly is a big priority for us and he’s been an important part of our football team the last five years,” general manager Martin Mayhew said.
“I think the world of him. I had an opportunity to sit down and talk with him. We had a good conversation. We look forward to working with him to try to get a deal done.”
Any long-term deal with Suh will likely hover around the $100 million mark with $50-plus million in guarantees. The franchise tag, which the Lions still view as an option, would cost them $26.9 million for the 2015 season.
“Ndamukong has repeatedly proven his value to our team and to our defense in particular,” team president Tom Lewand told detroitlions.com. “From the day we drafted him, his rookie season through this past year, he has been consistent. He has had, in everyone’s opinion, an extremely successful season in 2014 and he’s a key part of the nucleus of this team we want to keep together.”
The Lions and Suh’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, cut off negotiations in July until the season concluded. The two sides were far apart on the numbers and both wanted to turn their focus to the football field and winning football games in 2014. Suh certainly held up his end of that bargain.
He led the Lions with 8.5 sacks and his 37 quarterback hurries led all NFL defensive tackles.
He also finished the season with a career-high 21 tackles for loss and surpassed Hall of Fame defensive tackle Warren Sapp for the most TFLs by a defensive tackle since at least 2000.
“He had as fine a season as he’s ever had,” Lewand said. “So keeping him around here is very important and we haven’t changed our opinion from July when we said we want him here, we believe he wants to be here, and we’ll go about getting that done at the right point in time.
“We’re now quickly approaching that right point in time after going through the season much like we said we would.”
Getting a long-term deal done with Suh is obviously the best result for the Lions and their salary cap, but they think so highly of Suh, it appears they’re prepared to use every available resource at their disposal to keep him if they have to, including the franchise tag.
“I know Martin said in his postseason press conference there are things that we have available to us within the system that we can use to facilitate getting a deal done if we need to,” Lewand said. “And we’re prepared to look at all those things that we need to deploy in order to get deals done.
“Our experience over a long period of time has been that when a player wants to be here, and we want him here, we find a way to get a deal done. There are a lot of things that go into that. Part of that, and sometimes it’s a very small part of it, is cap management, and using the system to facilitate trying to get that deal done.
"As Martin said clearly last week, we will use every available resource within the system to try and come to a deal with Ndamukong.”
