Lions cornerback Darius Slay wants to be the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL.
Slay responded to a tweet listing the highest-paid cornerbacks in the NFL by saying that those top contracts are too low.
The highest-paid cornerback in the NFL right now, based on average pay per year, is Xavien Howard, whose contract with the Dolphins pays him $15.1 million a year. Slay made clear he wants more than that.
Slay is heading into the final year of his contract and is slated to make a $10 million base salary and another half-million in roster and workout bonuses. Clearly, he wants quite a bit more than that. He may hold out of training camp if he doesn’t get that.
Slay is one of the Lions’ top players, and General Manager Bob Quinn and head coach Matt Patricia have been given a win-or-else mandate from ownership, so it seems likely that they’ll be eager to keep him happy so he doesn’t hold out. They may give Slay a big deal that reduces his $13.4 million cap hit this year to give the team more flexibility in free agency, while pushing huge cap hits to future years. Those contracts sometimes come back to bite teams, but the Lions want to win now.