Linebacker Trey Flowers‘ season has come to an end. The Lions’ pass rusher has been unable to stay on the field all year, missing four out of eleven games this season.
Flowers joined the Lions in 2019 after signing a substantial five-year deal worth $90MM. Flowers had racked up 21.0 sacks and 25 tackles for loss in three full seasons with the Patriots after missing all but one game of his rookie season. Flowers showed the production his contract promised in his first year with Detroit tallying 7.0 sacks and 8 tackles for loss. His injury troubles would begin the following year, though, as he only played in 7 games, a total he was only able to match and not surpass this season.
The Lions will now have to consider what the future holds for Flowers in Detroit. Flowers holds a cap hit in the 2022 season of $23.24MM, with about $12.85MM being potential dead money. It’s hard to say the Lions have been able to move on without Flowers this season. Despite Flowers’ limited production only resulting in 1.5 sacks this year, that total is still good for fourth on the team.
Still, the Lions may decide that the risk of losing Flowers to injury may not outweigh the significant cap space he’ll take up. For now, shutting him down allows Flowers a chance to get healthy as the Lions take time to determine his value.
Trade him in the off-season Bill and the Pats. They could get no better than a 5th
Flowers is more likely a post June 1 Cut as that would reduce 2022 Dead Money to $7.2M with $16M in freed Cap Space. 2023 would be $5.6M Dead Money and $18M freed Cap Space per OTC – link to overthecap.com
A post June 1 trade would improve things by the $1.6M roster bonus he’s due on March 3, 2022. Meaning a late round 2023 pick. This was another bad Bob Quinn contract of which there were many.