July 27, 2026<\/a><\/p>\nCan the Lions even afford Vita Vea?<\/p>\n
The short answer is: yes and no. If the Lions traded for Vea, they would take on roughly $18 million. That alone would require releasing somebody to clear cap space. And here\u2019s the thing. Vea doesn\u2019t want to be a one-year rental. That\u2019s the whole reason he\u2019s requesting a trade. He wants a new contract.<\/p>\n
So if Detroit brought him in, the Lions would almost immediately need to extend him. That creates a massive problem because the Lions are already in the middle of trying to extend running back Jahmyr Gibbs, safety Brian Branch, and tight end Sam LaPorta. LaPorta is cleared and coming back, so the Lions are ready to pay him. Gibbs could get done any day now, and he\u2019ll likely become the highest-paid running back in the NFL. Branch might get pushed down the road a bit, but the Lions still want to get that done too.<\/p>\n
All of that gets in the way of paying Vea what he wants.<\/p>\n
What would a Vea deal even look like?<\/p>\n
Vea wants to be paid like one of the NFL\u2019s premier interior defensive linemen, which he is. Look at what the market looks like right now. Jeffrey Simmons just signed a 3-year, $105.8 million deal as the position\u2019s market leader, but Simmons has the advantage of being about four years younger than Vea. Chris Jones sits at roughly $31.75 million per year. Elite interior defenders are making between $28 million and $35 million annually, while good veteran starters land in the $20 million to $25 million range.<\/p>\n
A realistic deal for Vea is probably something like 2 years, $54 million ($27 million per year) with around $40 million guaranteed and a $20 million signing bonus. That is a lot of money for a player who is already 31 years old.<\/p>\n
What about swapping Alim McNeill for Vea?<\/p>\n
I get why that idea sounds appealing. Vea is one of the best defensive tackles in football, and if you\u2019re trying to win a Super Bowl, it\u2019s easy to convince yourself that he\u2019s an upgrade worth chasing. But from Detroit\u2019s perspective, it still doesn\u2019t make much sense.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re talking about giving up McNeill, who is younger and already under contract, plus probably a draft pick, for a player entering the final year of his deal who will almost certainly want a new contract worth around $25 million per season. You\u2019re paying extra draft capital to make the swap, and then you\u2019re signing up to give a 31-year-old defensive tackle a massive extension almost immediately. You\u2019re giving up a player who\u2019s cheaper and younger for a guy who\u2019s older and more expensive, with no guarantee of how much time he has left at an elite level.<\/p>\n
It would be nothing more than a dopamine hit. A cool thing the Lions did on paper that doesn\u2019t actually move the needle the way it needs to.<\/p>\n
The Lions have their own plan<\/p>\n
Trading McNeill and a pick for Vea would be a sharp departure from the Lions\u2019 normal philosophy. Detroit also just drafted Tyliek Williams in the first round of last year\u2019s draft. The jury is still out on Williams, but nobody is leaning toward him not being good. He dropped a bunch of weight to become a better pass rusher, and having McNeill back healthy makes the current group viable.<\/p>\n
I hate to be the bearer of bad news to Lions fans. I know they want something big. But this is just another one that\u2019s not going to happen, and not because the Lions don\u2019t want it to. I\u2019m sure they would love to have Vea. It just doesn\u2019t make sense financially, and it doesn\u2019t make sense philosophically. Vea will probably wind up somewhere else. And if you\u2019re worried about him landing in Chicago, don\u2019t worry. The Bears are in a worse financial situation than the Lions are.<\/p>\n
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Detroit Lions News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions could be one of the teams connected to Vita Vea in some way after his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,2506,7,147,6,6239,9752],"class_list":["post-957269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-lions","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-lions","tag-detroitlions","tag-football","tag-lions","tag-nfl","tag-tampa-bay-bucaneers","tag-vita-vea"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116994642338333702","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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