Ndamukong Suh, Detroit Lions 'really haven't been negotiating now,' says Joique Bell
When news of
Joique Bell’s new contract spread Tuesday, the Detroit Lions running back started receiving congratulatory phone calls from his teammates.
Running back Steven Miller was first to call, after seeing the news on his phone, then Reggie Bush, then Ndamukong Suh.
While Bell got his deal done before the start of free agency Tuesday, Suh and the Lions are still in the infant stages of discussions that could last into the summer or beyond.
The Lions were hoping to sign Suh to a long-term extension by Tuesday, but Suh
went more than a month without an agent, putting talks on hold and leaving the team with less salary cap space than it hoped to take into the market.
“I talked to Suh, and he said, actually, they’re not in — he said they really haven’t been negotiating now,” Bell said today, at the news conference to announce his new deal. “He said his focus is just coming in next season, and like I said, it’s easy for us just to be the players. That’s why we hire our agents to worry about that type of stuff.”
Suh currently has the second-biggest cap number for 2014 in the NFL, at $22.4 million.
His rookie contract voids next February, and the Lions would like to sign him to a long-term deal, both to keep him in Detroit for the foreseeable future and to make his cap number more manageable going forward.
If Suh does not get a deal done before next February and opts to become a free agent, the Lions could use the franchise tag, at nearly $27 million, to keep him off the market. (The Lions also would have another $9.7-million cap charge for previous bonus prorations.)
Bell’s three-year deal was far less complicated. The Lions tendered him at a second-round level Tuesday, for $2.187 million, and his three-year deal is worth $9.3 million total, including $4.3 million guaranteed.
Bell said he doesn’t know “anything” about Suh’s deal but said he was happy to hear from Suh and other teammates like Miller, Bush and Stephen Tulloch on Tuesday.
“Everybody just called me and was so happy for me and just said it’s good to get a deal and have your peers call you and say they know how hard you worked,” Bell said. “And these are guys that I see in here all the time and that work extremely hard, and for them to say, ‘We see your dedication, we see your sacrifices, you’re reaping what you sow, and we’re happy for you.’ So when you have that kind of respect from your teammates, it goes a long way.”
Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.
Stafford has issues for sure but that's not the entire story
