Rookie contracts are the name of the game in the NFL. If you can get serious talent under an extremely affordable rookie deal, it allows the general manager to go nuts with the rest of his money spent, creating great depth across the entire roster.
The Detroit Lions haven’t been particularly good at it lately. They have some talented young players, but there’s also a reason they rarely make it to the top 25 of 25 charts in the past decade.
But if there is one possible choice of rough diamond the Lions have made in recent history, it is the 2018 Da’Shawn Hand fourth round pick. After a stellar rookie season, his 2019 was marred by injury. But if he can bounce back in 2020, it could be one of the team’s best bargains.
He appears in n. # 5 on our Lions Top 10 salary cap deals for the 2020 season.
Reminder: This list is based on 2020 caps only, not the entire contract. Also, 2020 rookies are not included in the list as several remain unsigned.
2020 Stop Slam: $ 920,491
2020 top success ranking: 79 among inside defenders
In terms of a limit hit, Hand’s is essentially negligible. In fact, he’s pretty close to not even counting against the limit in the offseason, as he barely breaks the team’s top 51 contracts (see: Top 51 rule). To give you an idea of how low your cap shot is relative to the rest of the team, here are some players that will cost the Lions more in cap space in 2020: Darryl Roberts, Jayron Kearse, Joshua Garnett, Tony McRae and Miles Killebrew
But the question is how much talent do Lions really have in Da’Shawn Hand? And that remains a mystery. His aforementioned rookie season was one of the best in recent NFL history for defensive interior linemen:
But the biggest story of Hand’s career, so far, has been injuries. Even that rookie year he was cut short for a month due to injury. Last year, Hand suffered an arm injury early in training camp, and when he finally returned to the lineup in late October, he would last just a couple more games before returning to the disabled list. In total, he played just three games and had six tackles in what turned out to be an enormously disappointing second year in the NFL.
Personally, I’m not one to label a player as injury-prone. There are many things that explain why a player is injured and a large part of that is just bad luck. But even with injuries aside, the hand is anything but safe. Many players have good rookie seasons, but the biggest challenge is keeping it up. With the movie available now, Hand will have to continue to grow as a player to keep his efficiency high.
Still, Hand was one of the most exciting players on a solid defensive line in 2018. His passing skills (25 pressures in 13 games in 2018) will be invaluable to Detroit in 2020 … as long as he remains in the field and continues to improve.
Top 10 Detroit Lions salary cap values for 2020:
10. TJ Hockenson
9. Duron Harmon
8. Desmond Trufant
7. Matt Prater
6. Joe Dahl
5. Da’Shawn Hand
