Mayhew: Not having Suh contract good for Lions long-term

PHOENIX – They let the best defensive tackle in the NFL, the heart of their No. 2-ranked defense, walk out the door in free agency, but Martin Mayhew said the Detroit Lions might one day be grateful about their decision not to try and outbid the Miami Dolphins to keep Ndamukong Suh.

"I think anytime you lose a quality player like that, especially in the short term, that is to your detriment," Mayhew said over lunch with beat reporters today at the NFL owners meetings. "I think in the long term, I think we're going to be glad we don't have that contract on our books. But in the short term, that's an issue."

The Dolphins signed Suh to a six-year, $114-million deal earlier this month, giving the three-time all-pro $60 million guaranteed and making him the highest paid non-quarterback in the league.

The Lions made a late pitch to try and keep Suh, offering six years and $102 million shortly before he agreed to terms with the Dolphins, but they couldn't match Miami's offer in terms of guaranteed money or structure.

"There's a lot of different ways to give somebody $100 million, so a lot of times the structure comes into play, too, and all those things matter," Mayhew said. "But I know we have some quality players on our team that we probably couldn't keep if we had that deal on our books."

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The Lions, who've been quiet in free agency so far, signing Tyrunn Walker and trading for Haloti Ngata, likely would have had to restructure the contracts of several players in order to afford Suh and might have jeopardized their ability to re-sign young players like Ziggy Ansah and Darius Slay down the road.

After years of salary cap mismanagement, Mayhew said being able to sign those players is important and one reason the Lions did not use the franchise tag on Suh was because they wanted to get their cap situation in order.

Suh would have cost $26.9 million had the Lions applied the franchise tag.

"I think throughout the last, probably since we did Matthew (Stafford's) contract, whenever that was, we've always sort of been top heavy with a few guys out there," Mayhew said. "And then the thing about the franchise tag was continuing to kick the can down the road and restructure deals to make that happen and we want to get out of that situation at some point so that didn't make a lot of sense."

The Lions opened negotiations on a new contract with Suh at the owners meetings last year, but tabled talks before the start of the season when they declined to meet his demands of becoming the highest paid defensive player in the league.

Mayhew, Lions president Tom Lewand and others expressed optimism throughout the process that Suh would stay in Detroit, and Mayhew said today that optimism was well-founded.

"I couldn't say we misjudged anything about (the situation)," he said. "I think every step throughout the process I think we made a rational, thoughtful decision to move forward and then I think it got to a point where economically in terms of building a sustainable quality football team it didn't make sense. And at that point, we decided that we weren't going to continue to offer more."

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Mayhew said he believes that Suh wanted to stay in Detroit, as he told the Free Press earlier this month, but he said he learned plenty from the failed negotiations, though he declined to share specifics.

"They say hindsight is 20-20, I think it's 20-15," Mayhew said. "You see a lot clearer in hindsight, so there's about 1,000 things I would do differently. But we make decisions in real time with the information you have and I feel good about every decision we made every step of the way."

Days after losing Suh, the Lions traded for Ngata, a five-time Pro Bowler who at 31 is in the twilight of his career. And a few days later, after making clear they weren't going to bring back Nick Fairley, they signed Walker as a non-tendered free agent.

Asked how the Lions are better now than they were at the start of the season, Mayhew pointed to the calendar and said "we don't have to be a better team today than we were last year at this time."

"We went and got Haloti Ngata who's a heck of a football player, who's going to be a great player for us, still playing at a high level," Mayhew said. "So that sort of replaces some of that production, especially in the run game. But we've got other things we need to do to make up for not having that player."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.