The Los Angeles Rams traded Michael Brockers in a salary dump. The Detroit Lions acquired him to be more than a one-year rental.
Brockers signed a contract extension with the Lions over the weekend after the team acquired him in a Wednesday trade at the start of the 2021 league year.
Brockers, 30, declined to cut his $6.5 million base salary in half coming off a steady five-sack season, which prompted the Rams, in need of both cap and cash space, to deal him for a 2023 seventh-round draft pick.
“I’d say this about Brockers,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said Friday. “He’s probably one of the few in this league that can wield the hammer of Thor. So we’re real excited about that.”
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Brockers new contract includes $11 million guaranteed and should tie him to the Lions through at least the 2022 season.
He received a $5.925 million signing bonus and minimum base salary this season, a league source told the Free Press, has $4 million of his $7 million base salary guaranteed for 2022 and a $10 million base salary in 2023.
The Lions lowered Brockers’ cap hit from the $7 million charge they inherited to just $3.05 million this fall.
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Brockers, who has missed just six games in his nine-year NFL career, should be a key contributor on the Lions’ defensive line in 2021, playing alongside Trey Flowers, Romeo Okwara and John Penisini.
He had 51 tackles in 15 games last season, when he re-signed with the Rams after a spring deal with the Baltimore Ravens fell through over injury concerns about his ankle. He played the second-most snaps of any Rams defensive lineman last season, behind Aaron Donald, and missed his only game in January when he was on the reserve/COVID list.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.