We broke down what option bonuses are in relation to Kerby Joseph\u2019s contract here<\/a>. Additionally, there is just one void year on the deal\u2014but plenty of room to restructure and add void years, if desired.<\/p>\nThose two things combined allow the Lions a little wiggle room toward the end of Gibbs\u2019 contract. If they want to get out of the contract, the lack of prorated option bonuses leaves less guaranteed (dead) money to worry about, particularly in that final year. If they want to extend Gibbs or lower his cap hit, the high base salaries allow for simple restructures.<\/p>\n
But there is one caveat to all of this\u2026<\/p>\n
Rolling guarantees make this contract harder to cut Jahmyr Gibbs<\/p>\n
This contract is loaded with rolling guarantees. What are rolling guarantees? Basically, it\u2019s a way for a player to ensure some of their salary is guaranteed a year prior to the next season.<\/p>\n
For example, let\u2019s take Gibbs\u2019 2028 salary. $8 million of it is already guaranteed. He\u2019s getting that money\u2014and the Lions are taking that cap hit\u2014even if he\u2019s cut before 2028. The remaining $2.25 million in 2028 salary becomes guaranteed if he\u2019s still on the roster in March of 2027. So, in essence, if the Lions were to cut Gibbs in 2028, they would still be on the hook for that entire salary, because it became fully guaranteed in March of 2027.<\/p>\n
Here are the other rolling guarantees in his contract:<\/p>\n
If on the roster in March 2028, $8 million of his 2029 salary is guaranteedIf on the roster in March 2029, the $3.5 million of his 2029 salary is guaranteed<\/p>\n
So even if the Lions cut Gibbs before March of 2029, they will still have to take cap hits for:<\/p>\n
Two more remaining signing bonus prorations (2029, 2030): $3 million eachThree more remaining option bonus prorations (2029, 2030, 2031): $2,006,600 each$8 million in 2029 salary that became guaranteed in March 2028: $8 million<\/p>\n
\u2026 for a total of $20,019,800 in dead cap\u2014saving just under $7.5 million in cap space.<\/p>\n
While the Lions can get out of the contract in 2029, it\u2019s much more costly than it looks at first glance. That said, Detroit could utilize the June 1 designation to cut that year, splitting the ~$20 million in dead cap over two years ($13 million in 2029, $7 million in 2030).<\/p>\n
But Detroit is getting early cap relief<\/p>\n
Gibbs\u2019 2026 cap hit did increase by $3 million (new signing bonus proration), because there was nothing they could do with his minimum salary (it was fully guaranteed). However, they will certainly feel some relief in 2027.<\/p>\n
After Detroit exercised Gibbs\u2019 fifth-year option, they were staring down a $14.29 million fully guaranteed salary. His 2027 cap hit is now essentially $8 million less, giving Detroit some flexibility in next year\u2019s free agency.<\/p>\n
Now, let\u2019s say you didn\u2019t want to extend Gibbs. You wanted him to play off that fifth-year option, and then franchise tag him in 2028. Three more years of Gibbs, then say goodbye. It\u2019s hard to predict what his 2028 franchise tag would be, but OverTheCap projects the tag to be $15.065 million in 2027. Chances are it will be at least as expensive as Gibbs\u2019 current 2028 cap hit of $15.5 million.<\/p>\n
So over the next three years\u2014well within the Lions\u2019 Super Bowl window\u2014Gibbs would have actually cost at least $5 million more to the team\u2019s salary cap than if they didn\u2019t extend him.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the Lions are offering incentives to Gibbs tied around receiving yards, suggesting they are very interested in increasing that part of his game. Here are the details of those:<\/p>\n
$562,500 for each season (2026-28) in which he earns at least 800 receiving yards [paid in 2029]$562,500 for each season (2026-28) in which he earns at least 800 receiving yards AND the team gets to the divisional round of the playoffs [paid in 2029]$421,875 for each season (2026-29)in which he earns at least 800 receiving yards [paid in 2030]$421,875 for each season (2026-29) in which he earns at least 800 receiving yards AND the team gets to the divisional round of the playoffs [paid in 2030]<\/p>\n
These incentives, if earned, will impact the salary cap when they are paid out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The full contract details of Jahmyr Gibbs\u2019 three-year extension are out, and it reveals a ton of interesting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[189513,2131,349,99],"class_list":["post-808009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-detroit-lions-contracts-and-salary-cap","tag-detroit-lions-analysis","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/platform.prideofdetroit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/127\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-09-at-7.41.07-AM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100\")
<\/a><\/p>\n