Beginning on Tuesday (June 1), NFL teams will be allowed to spread out salary cap hits on players who are either released or traded rather than taking the whole cap hit for the 2021 season.
Because of this, you can expect to see plenty of veteran players around the league either traded or released.
Four Detroit Lions players who could be released or traded, according to Jeff Risdon of Lions Wire, are Jamie Collins, Trey Flowers, Tyrell Crosby, and Halapoulivaati Vaitai.
The biggest surprise on this list is Flowers, who is probably the best defender the Lions currently have.
Here is what Risdon has to say about the Lions potentially moving on from Trey Flowers.
Flowers is the highest-paid Lion entering 2021 and arguably the team’s best overall player. But he’s changing positions (from DE to OLB) in a new-look defense that might not suit his particular set of skills all that well. His cap figure jumps to over 10 percent of the team’s allocation in both 2022 and 2023, too. Read that as Flowers not being long for Detroit, barring an unexpected restructure.
After June 1st, the 2021 cap penalty for trading Flowers drops over $11 million for Detroit, down to just $1.675 million.
To read Risdon's rationale for unloading Collins, Crosby, and Vaitai, please click here.
