The Detroit Lions made Jack Campbell the second highest-paid linebacker in the NFL with the four-year extension he signed last week, but they won’t feel the impact of the deal on their salary cap for a few seasons.
Campbell’s new contract is worth $81 million in new money and includes an $8.612 million signing bonus, a series of four option bonuses totaling more than $50 million and four void years for salary cap purposes.
On the raw numbers, Campbell’s extention puts him at $20.25 million in average annual value, just behind San Francisco’s Fred Warner, at $21 million (per Spotrac).
But bonuses are prorated over the life of a contract – up to five years, for cap purposes – allowing teams to push some of their cap burden into future seasons. The Lions have followed a similar plan with the extensions of other recent draft picks including Aidan Hutchinson and Jameson Williams, using multiple void years to create low initial cap numbers that rise sharply later in the contract.
Campbell was due to make $2,757,549 this fall with a cap hit of $4.684 million in the final year of his rookie contract.
Under his new deal, Campbell will receive a $1.145 million base salary – the minimum for a player entering his fourth season – plus his signing bonus, for a cash total of $9.758 million this year. But he’ll have a similar cap number: $4.794 million.
Campbell also has minimal cap numbers of $5.46 million in 2027 and $9.275 million in 2028 before the charge swells to $24.12 million in 2029.
Prior to finalizing the extension, the Lions declined the guaranteed fifth-year option on Campbell’s contract, worth an estimated $21.925 million.
Campbell’s new deal includes option bonuses of $11.89 million in 2027, $18.45 million in 2028, $5 million in 2029 and $15.4 million in 2030, base salaries of $1.26 million, $1.305 million, $15.15 million and $2.75 million in 2027-30 and a $100,000 workout bonus each year.
The deal, which has void years from 2031-34, would leave the Lions with a dead money hit of $25.236 million in 2031 if Campbell plays out his contract with no modifications.
Jack Campbell contract, by the years
Here are the full figures for Jack Campbell’s deal:
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jack Campbell extension with Detroit Lions puts off salary cap pain
Reporting by Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
