NFL Financial Protocol
Reporting Context: Lions restructured WR Amon-Ra St. Brown and LT Penei Sewell converting base salary into prorated signing bonus to generate over $30M in current salary cap relief.
Target cap space threshold exceeded (> $30M)
2026 Cap Space Created
$30,400,000
Immediate net budget created
Total Salary Converted
$32,000,000
Combined bonus conversion
Future Annual Proration
$8,000,000
Added annual cap charge (Years 2-4)
Reported Target Floor
$30,000,000
Spotrac / Schefter threshold
Restructure Levers
2 Active Players
Amon-Ra St. Brown
WR • #14
4 Years Remaining
Current Base Salary:
$22,000,000
Converted Amount:
$17,600,000
80%
0% (No Conversion)
Default: 80%
95% (Near Minimum)
Net 2026 Relief:
$16,720,000
Penei Sewell
LT • #58
4 Years Remaining
Current Base Salary:
$18,000,000
Converted Amount:
$14,400,000
80%
0% (No Conversion)
Default: 80%
95% (Near Minimum)
Net 2026 Relief:
$13,680,000
Restructure Financial Engineering
Under the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), teams can execute an "automatic conversion" restructure. Base salary is converted into an immediate signing bonus, which is paid to the player upfront in cash, while the accounting salary cap hit is prorated equally over up to five contract years.
4-Year Cap Hit Distribution
Current relief vs. future year proration burdens
Relief
Proration Hit
Projected Cap Liability Ledger
| Year | Contract Status | St. Brown Proration | Sewell Proration | Annual Proration Added | Net Cap Delta |
|---|
Report Provenance & Methodology
Data synthesized directly from reporting by Adam Schefter (ESPN) and salary cap contracts recorded on Spotrac.
Detroit Lions Cap Space Explorer v1.0
Base Salary Conversion:
Converts up to ~95% of current base salary into a fully guaranteed signing bonus while preserving required minimum base salary.
4-Year Proration:
Bonus proration is equally allocated across the remaining 4 years of St. Brown and Sewell's contract terms.
Cap Space Impact:
Cap created = Total Converted minus First-Year Proration. At standard 80% restructure, yields precisely $30.4M cap relief.