A week after the Detroit Lions announced that 2023 first-round pick Jack Campbell signed a four-year extension, the full details of the deal appear to be out. Tuesday night, Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press provided partial details of the $81 million contract, and OverTheCap filled out the rest of the details by Wednesday morning.
Like most of the Lions’ recent extensions, Campbell’s deal is heavily reliant upon option bonuses. As a quick reminder, here’s how option bonuses work. If a player
is still on the roster on the deadline of an option bonus, they earn said bonus. It becomes guaranteed money. That’s the advantage for the player. For the team, instead of using a high salary number—which hits the salary cap all in one year—they use the option bonus, which spreads evenly over the remainder of the contract, with a maximum of a five-year split. So if you were to give a player a $20 million salary, that costs you $20 million against the cap. But if you offer a $20 million option bonus instead, it costs the same in cash, but if there’s five years remaining on the contract, that $20 million only costs $4 million per year against the salary cap.
It’s a way to keep salaries and cap hits low in early years of the contract, but it also pushes the majority of cap into the future.
Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of Campbell’s contract, and show how it works for the Lions linebacker.
Contract details
- Four years, $81 million total
- Signing bonus: $8,612,545
- $100,000 annual workout bonuses (2027-30)
- 2027 option bonus: $11.89 million (guaranteed)
- 2028 option bonus: $18.845 million
- 2029 option bonus: $5 million
- 2030 option bonus: $15.4 million
- 2030 roster bonus: $2 million
- 4 void years (2031-34)
- Salaries:
- 2026: $1.145M (guaranteed)
- 2027: $1.26M (guaranteed)
- 2028: $1.305M
- 2029: $15.15M
- 2030: $2.75M
Year-by-year breakdown
2026
- $1.145M salary
- $1,926,730 previous signing bonus proration
- $1,722,509 new signing bonus proration
- Total cap hit: $4,794,239
2027
- $1.26M salary
- $1,722,509 signing bonus proration
- $100,000 workout bonus
- $2.378M 2027 option bonus proration
- Total cap hit: $5,460,509
2028
- $1.305M salary
- $1,722,509 signing bonus proration
- $100,000 workout bonus
- $2.378M 2027 option bonus proration
- $3.769M 2028 option bonus proration
- Total cap hit: $9,274,509
2029
- $15.15M salary
- $1,722,509 signing bonus proration
- $100,000 workout bonus
- $2.378M 2027 option bonus proration
- $3.769M 2028 option bonus proration
- $1M 2029 option bonus proration
- Total cap hit: $24,119,509
2030
- $2.75M salary
- $1,722,509 signing bonus proration
- $100,000 workout bonus
- $2.378M 2027 option bonus proration
- $3.769M 2028 option bonus proration
- $1M 2029 option bonus proration
- $3.08M 2030 option bonus proration
- Total cap hit: $16,799,509
2031 — Contract automatically voids
- $2.378M 2027 option bonus proration
- $7.538M 2028 option bonus prorations
- $3M 2029 option bonus prorations
- $12.32M 2030 option bonus prorations
- Total cap hit: $25,236,000
Overall visual
Conclusion
As you can see in the chart above, there is no real “out” in Campbell’s contract. Every year, if the Lions cut Campbell loose, he’ll actually cost the Lions more in dead cap that year than the cap hit for that season. Of course, you’d be saving money down the line by avoiding future option bonuses, but the way this contract is framed, it certainly seems like Detroit is banking on Campbell playing through the entirety of this contract.
In fact, there are several clues along the way that Detroit is planning on a second extension. First is that big $15.15 million salary in 2029. That gives the Lions some flexibility to restructure that contract and kick some cap hit into the future by turning some of that into a signing bonus and prorating it into future years.
But the main reason is that $25 million dead cap figure in 2031. If the Lions don’t extend Campbell, they’ll have to take on all of the remaining prorated bonuses (the cells in red), as they accelerate to 2031 when the contract voids. A $25 million cap hit when the player is gone would be a tough pill to swallow. However, if Detroit opts to extend Campbell again, all of those prorations in the red cells above can stay in those future years, and the Lions can begin the process all over again in kicking money even further into the future.
