Back in mid-April, Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn said contract extension talks with quarterback Matthew Stafford were "in the very early stages." Things have apparently progressed at least a bit since, but not much.
"We're in the early stages," Quinn said Wednesday on Sirius XM NFL Radio. "It's really too early to kind of give any update but we're going through the process. These things don't happen overnight. I feel confident we can get something done."
So, things have gone from the very early stages to the early stages.
It's not difficult to see why things might take a while. Stafford is due $16.5 million in cash in the final year of his contract, but has a cap hit of $22 million, thanks to the prorated signing bonus on his three-year, $53 million extension signed back in 2013.
That extension was tacked onto the six-year rookie contract he signed as one of the last No. 1 picks of the old collective bargaining agreement, back when the No. 1 pick set a new record for guaranteed money every year. The NFL no longer works in that environment, but Stafford's deal actually pays him less on an annual basis than 18 quarterbacks.
Stafford has been very good (he's one of only three passers to throw for at least 4,000 yards in each of the past six seasons) but not necessarily great (he ranks 20th in completion percentage, 20th in touchdown rate, 15th in interception rate, 24th in yards per attempt, and 15th in passer rating among 53 QBs who have thrown at least 500 passes during those six seasons), so he figures to be worth more than the 19th-highest paid QB, but there may be a ceiling to how good your team can be if you pay him, say, $20 million or more. So there is a balancing act the Lions have to strike because keeping him is definitely a good idea, but they can't pay him so much they can't fill out the rest of the roster with quality players.
