Lions Insider

Lions coach Jim Schwartz said last week at the Super Bowl that he likes the way the offseason schedule shapes up this year with free agency starting more than a week later than normal.

"It gives us a little bit more time to make more evaluations," he said.

Schwartz said those evaluations have already begun, starting with the coaches assessments of the film cut-ups from last year. He also said the personnel department has been busy evaluating free agents and this year’s rookie class.

The Lions will have a good plan for free agency when it begins, just like they've had the past couple seasons when they've signed players like  Kyle Vanden Bosch, Nate Burleson and Stephen Tulloch.

First, though, the Lions have decisions to make on 25 pending free agents on their roster. Over the next month, they can re-sign their own players, including key starters like defensive end Cliff Avril, Tulloch, cornerback Eric Wright and offensive tackle Jeff Backus.

Some of those players could ultimately decide to wait and see what their market value will be before putting ink to paper, though.

The Lions are also hopeful they can extend receiver Calvin Johnson's contract past the last year of his rookie deal next season, reducing his approximately $22 million cap number for next season.

Lions president Tom Lewand said he’s had talks with all the team's key free agents, and Johnson, and those negotiations are at varying stages.

On paper, the Lions don't appear to have enough cap room to sign all of their key free agents and make a run at at some desired free agents on the open market with restructuring some contract or releasing some free agents, but Lewand didn’t seem too worried when talking to reporters about the salary cap last week at the Super Bowl.

“Here’s my analogy with the salary cap,” he said. “If somebody looks at a movie still and tries to tell you about the entire movie, you’re not going to get it.

“If they watch the trailer so you’ve got a little bit more information about the cap -- you watch the trailer and you try and tell me if it was a good movie or not -- you may have a little bit more to go on. But until you’ve seen the whole movie, you don’t know. We’re the only ones who’ve seen the whole movie.”

Lewand said the problems the Lions face are good ones to have and it worth watching how this movie plays out over the course of the offseason. He's confident in the plan the Lions have in place heading forward and confident in their ability to fit those plans within the structure of the salary cap, which will be around $120 million in 2012.