Carlton Davis has been one of the better cornerbacks in the league lately, here's what the Lions will have to pay him to keep him this offseason

The Detroit Lions went looking for cornerback help this offseason in an effort to rebuild their secondary and the biggest move they made was to trade a future third-round pick to the Buccaneers in exchange for Carlton Davis. 

I'll admit, at first glance I wasn't too impressed with this move. As time went on and I got to see him up close at camp, I started to realize just how good he is. So far this season he has proven to be even better than that. 

Since Week 4, Davis is allowing a catch percentage of just 50%. 18 catches on 36 targets for 203 yards and no touchdowns. He's broken up five passes and picked off two passes. He also has a missed tackle percentage of 15.2%. If you catch the ball in his area, you are going down. 

That 50% is easily top five since Week 4 and the pass breakups is too. He is one of the best corners in the NFL right now and he's a big reason why the Lions have allowed just seven passing touchdowns all season long. The Lions had allowed 15 at this time last year if you're curious. 

With all this good play from Davis, Lions fans have been wondering a lot about how much it could cost the Lions to sign Davis to a new contract before he hits free agency next March. 

We worked with our on staff cap analyst Joshua Queipo to figure out what Davis' deal with the Lions could look like and here's what he presented:  

The proposal is a three-year deal worth $52 million with $35 million of that guaranteed. 

The deal is based off two players who had similar output and received similar deals back in 2020. One is James Bradberry, who got a three-year $45 million deal with the Giants after a big year in Carolina. The other one is Bradley Roby who got a big three-year extension from the Texans after a career season in 2019. 

This is big contract, but with the guaranteed money, the Lions get some wiggle room to make sure that they can back load the deal and give them the money they'll need to sign Aidan Hutchinson, Kerby Joseph and Derrick Barnes to new deals in the offseason. 

Plus they should still be able to work in some free agency acquisitions with the team potentially rolling over nearly $28 million in cap from this year and then having the projected 10th most cap space in the league this coming offseason. 

Don't forget that the cap is going to rise again and after a $30 million rise last year, it could be another big jump this year. This team is in good shape money wise and they'll be in great shape secondary wise by keeping Davis.