7 Detroit Lions contracts automatically void, creating millions in dead cap

The contracts of seven separate Detroit Lions players will automatically expire on Friday, five days after the Super Bowl. This was anticipated since the Lions utilized 2024 as a year of automatic voiding to help distribute the budget hit of individual contracts across a number of years.(Note: See our examination of Emmanuel Moseley’s contract from the previous year to see how a voided year operates.)

The following players’ contracts will void on Friday: QB Teddy Bridgewater, G Graham Glasgow, G Halapoulivaati Vaitai, EDGE Charles Harris, EDGE Romeo Okwara, CB Emmanuel Moseley, S C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

To be clear, this does not mean that these players can sign with any team at any time because their contracts will be nullified.When the new league year begins on March 13, they will have the same freedoms as any other player whose contract is about to expire: they will be unrestricted free agents. Similar to those players, these players with voided contracts are currently able to negotiate (and sign, if desired) a new contract with the Lions. But even if Detroit decides to resign any of them this year, this dead cap was always going to be in place until 2024. It cannot be taken out or changed.

Here’s a look at the total of each player’s cap hit that will be on the books regardless of whether they return or not:

• Teddy Bridgewater — Dead cap: $500,000
• Graham Glasgow — Dead cap: $1,470,000
• Halapoulivaati Vaitai — Dead cap: $3,843,195
• Charles Harris — Dead cap: $1,988,334
• Romeo Okwara — Dead cap: $3,500,000
• Emmanuel Moseley — Dead cap: $1,000,000
• C.J. Gardner-Johnson — Dead cap: $2,000,000

Add it all together, and these seven players will account for $14,301,529 in dead cap for the 2024 season. But, again, these are cap hits that general manager Brad Holmes was expecting and factored into his budgeting for the upcoming offseason.