Lions sign Redding to monster deal before franchise-player deadline

By John Clayton
ESPN.com

Updated: July 16, 2007, 2:43 PM ET

Last year, Rod Marinelli moved Cory Redding from defensive end to defensive tackle in the belief he could be one of the best defensive tackles in football.

On Monday, the Lions backed up that belief by making him the highest paid defensive tackle in football. Redding, the team's franchise player in 2007, agreed to a seven-year, $49 million contract that included $16 million in guarantees, including $13 million in signing bonus and roster guarantees.

Redding will receive a little more than $20 million over the first three years of his contract.

Redding's agreement beat a 4 p.m. Monday deadline for franchise players. Had he not reached an agreement, Redding would have been forced to only accept a one-year deal with no chance of an extension until next season. Under those circumstances, Redding might have held out the entire training camp.

Now, he will be present for the start of camp and will work with Shaun Rogers in what Marinelli believes will be one of the more dominating interior defensive lines in football.

Redding's agent, Kennard McGuire, was unavailable for comment while he worked out the final paperwork to submit to the league before the 4 p.m. deadline.

Initially, Redding wanted to hit the free agent market and leave the team. Marinelli and the organization decided to franchise him and try to talk him into taking a long-term deal. Last Monday, both sides had a major breakthrough in negotiations when the Lions came within $400,000 a year of Redding's demands.

Talks slowed down last Friday and Saturday and the possibility of no long-term deal existed. On Monday morning, the Lions increased their offer and signed him for $7 million a year.

The Redding deal tops the five-year, $33.24 million contract given to Vikings defensive tackle Kevin Williams.

The 6-4, 290-pound Redding was taken in the third round of the 2002 draft and started nine games as a defensive end as a rookie. In the past three years, he had 48 starts. Last year, he had career highs in tackles (47) and sacks (eight).

I'd say something like: "OMG" or "What are they doing?" or "That's ridiculous", but at this point I just look at the contract and feel nothing. There is nothing that they can do anymore to surprise me. Nothing.

At least he got money for performing, unlike Kalimba. If he matches last year for the length of his contract, then I guess it's cool. If he flops then we're doomed for years...I mean, more doomed.

What are the odds that he actually performs like the "highest paid defensive tackle in football" at any time during the length of this contract?

Not good I would say.

So we gave a huge contract to a DE to play DT?

Who fucking knows anymore? It'll prolly work.

Well, highest paid probably means total contract, not the yearly salary. Gerard Warren was the highest paid DT two years ago at just over 6 mil. Redding only makes a mil more than him (plus that was two years ago).

7 Mil is a lot, but there are quite a few LT's making around 10 mil too. If Redding can play like last year then he'll be worth it, especially if Rogers comes back with a vengence too.

But, he won't.

the loveable lions. im pretty sure if we disected them like we did the pistons half the posters on here would be in the looney bin.

btw, peter king came out with his power rankings today. he put the lions at #13. i like peter king. one of these years, just by the laws of averages, the lions will justify his annual matt millen nut riding, and he'll have a huge "told ya so" to the rest of the football world.

Who are some of the other players that are the highest paid at their position? I'm interested in seeing if they play up to their contract.

As far as the new deal, I don't care. He's a good solid hardworking player. Why not re-sign him? It ain't my money.

According to some of the things Killer (everyone's favorite) said when they were trying to get him resigned was that he played enough DE and really racked up some stats there, making the team fear they would have to pay him like a DE, apparently a higher paid position than DT. So to have him be the highest paid DT isn't quite as bad as having his salary rank among the top DE's.

I know its the Lions we are talking about here but $49 million? Wow. That's awful, even by the Lion's standards.

Meanwhile, they're paying millions in "dead money" against the cap to players no longer on the roster. That's from some other thread here.

Let's see. Why don't we play ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER?

Ok, ready?
Ken Holland, Joe Dumars, Matt Millen, Dave Dombrowski.

can you imagine how quickly millen would fuck up the pistons?

can you imagine how quickly millen would fuck up the pistons?

Cut a bunch of guys to clean house. Rebuild around the Twin Towers strategy, using Nazr and signing Mikki Moore to a 6 year, $63 million deal. S & T Chauncey for Sebastian Telfair and Brian Scalabrine. Fire Flip and hire Mike Montgomery, simply because of his initials. Go to bed and call Day 1 a success.

Jeth's on fire tonight!

Don't forget to improve team speed.

Team speed is why he makes Rip the cornerstone of the team. He makes a huge contract offer on Boykins. Starting lineup:
PG - Telfair
SG - Boykins
SF - Rip
PF - Nazr
C - Moore

Now that's a team that will win some games!
Soon he runs into former Piston Ben Wallace and calls him a homo. After a practice, he goes on radio asking about Tay's testacles.

Sooner rather than later, Michael Curry's nutsack is seen by a McDonald's employee as he drives through for an ice water and gets pissed off that the price isn't pure zeroes anymore.

Well, Nazr doesn't fit the team speed mold. He'd probably cut Nazr so his salary would be on our books as dead money. Then he'd trade Sheed to Dallas for Diop to boost speed.

Don't forget, I think Chris "The Birdman" Andersen is able to return this year, so Millen can sign him.

Millen would have kept Melvin Levitt and Dupree would have started over Tay.

And fire Flip and hire Darko to coach.

Nope, Mike Montgomery, remember. MM. It's a way of life. Coaches must have a last name starting with M, and if the first name does as well, bonus!

Whoever would coach, I'd put even money on Dick Vitale and George Irvine coming back as assistants.

By the way, I mentioned earlier the fact that team officials once worried Redding would have to be paid DE money. Do you realize the difference? The top DT in the league is getting $7 mill per season now. The top DE (Freeney) is getting $12 per season.

also, please don't think I'm saying Redding is anywhere near the playmaker that Freeney is. I'm just sayin...

I don't think the deal's terrible, I'm just tired of the Lions settling for mediocrity.

Jeff Backus is the perfect example to me. He's a good enough player. He shows up to play every week, doesn't make too many mistakes, is a good guy in the locker room, etc. But is he one of the top ten left tackles in the league? Top twenty even? Put him on half the teams in the league and they'd shift him to the right side or to guard because he's worse than the LT they already have.

But what do the Lions do? They franchise him and pay him like he's Walter Jones II. It's a recurring theme you see across all sports, and the teams that do it are all usually in the same spot in the standings. The Tigers did it for years with Higginson, Easley, D Young, etc. The Knicks did it with Starbury, Francis, Curry, that center whose nameI can't even remember, etc.

You need to look for the elite talent and pay for it but when it comes to the middling, replaceable talent, the Jeff Backuses, the Eddie Currys, the (uggggggh) Nazr Mohammeds of the world, if they're demanding too much money, let them walk. Let it be someone else's mistake.

You're better off paying an unproven guy the minimum than a mediocre guy 90% of what the studs make.

I was listening to ESPN radio the other day and they were talking about this. Specifically they talked about the Patriots not overpaying guys (which is interesting, since Richard Seymour was horribly overpaid). They gave several examples of guys, like Deion Branch. He wanted to hold them over a barrel and they said, "You know what, you're good but not that good. Look around and see what you find, because you're not worth that kind of money, especially in a salary cap league." So he went to Seattle and proved that he wasn't as good as he thought. Meanwhile New England continues to win. They talked about the rotating door of DB's in New England and said Asante Samuel is shooting himself in the foot, because they tried working with him but he wouldn't have it. Meanwhile they've had CB combos that nobody has ever heard of that have Super Bowl rings.

Keep in mind Redding lead the league in sacks the 2nd half of the year for DT's with 6.5. Also keep in mind he did that without Rogers in there (meaning Redding got doubled a lot). Also keep in mind that he'd never played DT before in the NFL. Also keep in mind that was a brand new defense for him.

I'm not saying he's Warren Sapp in his prime or anything. I'm just saying the guy had a good year. If he can keep that up then he's certainly worth it. if not he'll be another anchor on this franchise.

True enough. We would all like to believe that with Rogers and White alongside him on that line he will be a beast and make opposing QB's look like Jon Kitna or David Carr. But, this is the Lions and it's hard to believe any player can consistantly improve.

That being said, I repeat that I'm a Marinelli fan. I like what I've seen to this point.

I guess I'd rather dump a bunch of money into a guy that we already had here and preform well here, even if it's only one good year so far...then sign someone else's cast off like we've done on the OL.

Did anyone else notice that the assistant general manager also had the initials MM? That's the guy Redding specifically asked to have handle his contract negotiation.