NFL Free Agency: Stephen Tulloch Signing Signals League-Wide Paradigm Shift

No Stephen Tulloch. That’s what I’ve been saying since before the lockout started.

There simply wasn’t any way the Lions would be able to sign Stephen Tulloch. He would either be too expensive, or he would be looking to sign with a contender.

Either way, he was going to be out of the Lions’ scope.

That, of course, was before Tulloch signed with the Lions, on a one-year deal worth just over $3 million. No matter how you look at it, that’s a severe cut from what his market value ought to have been.

For reference, Tulloch and Buffalo’s Paul Posluszny were arguably the top two interior linebackers in this year’s free-agent class.

Posluszny got a six-year, $42 million deal from Jacksonville, with $15 million guaranteed.

Tulloch got a similar, though slightly smaller, offer from the Lions, worth $6 million a year and $10 million guaranteed. Tulloch declined, and that, we all thought, was that. At least they tried, right?

The Lions moved on to looking into former Packer Nick Barnett, and Tulloch moved on to…ultimately signing a much smaller deal?

Why in the world would this have happened? Surely somebody out there would have signed a guy who averaged 10 tackles a game last year to a bigger contract?

It’s simple, really. Tulloch was either going to be too expensive for the Lions, or he was going to want to sign with a contender.

Tulloch wanted to sign with the Lions. There’s no other explanation. Had Tulloch simply called up his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, and told him to drum up the best deal possible, he would have used the Lions’ $6 million a year offer to drum up offers from other teams.

Instead, he turned the Lions down, hoping they would increase the offer to get him, with no better players on the market. It was all a negotiating ploy.

He had no way of knowing how badly his strategy would blow up in his face. Nick Barnett getting cut by the Packers, the Titans signing Barrett Ruud to replace him, and the Lions’ easy re-signing of Chris Houston greatly diminished Tulloch’s leverage.

If Tulloch didn’t care who he signed with, that would have been the end of it.

Having lost all leverage in negotiations, it would have been easy enough to him to restart contract talks with a different team. You can’t tell me there were no other offers for a speedy 26-year-old tackling machine of a middle linebacker.

Instead, he and Rosenhaus crawled back and took what the Lions were willing to give them. One year, $3.25 million.

I didn’t think it was possible, but one of the top free agents on the market took a pay cut to sign with the Detroit Lions.

Now, there’s no way to know exactly what Tulloch’s offer sheet looked like. Maybe he wasn’t getting quite the interest he thought he would, so he decided to take one year behind a dominant defensive line to make him look like a rock star, then try the market out again.

But whatever Tulloch’s intentions with the Lions are, he’s in Detroit at a discount price. And his agent doesn’t appear to be thrilled with the outcome.

Rosenhaus denied allegations of the aforementioned $6 million deal, but nobody quite knows why. Most likely it’s that he’s trying to save face after trying to play “Chicken” with Martin Mayhew and blinking.

And swerving. Into a tree. Unconfirmed reports also suggest he hung up on reporters in frustration after the deal.

This is unprecedented. Mayhew is handling the Detroit Lions the way dynasty teams’ front offices do. Well-built, well-run teams never get taken hostage by free-agent negotiations.

As soon as talks got messy, Mayhew shrugged and wished Tulloch and Rosenhaus the best of luck, and moved on. When they returned, Mayhew’s offer had hardballed down considerably.

In other words, regardless of what reasons Tulloch had for joining Detroit, it wasn’t money. And for years, that was the only reason for any free agent to join the Lions.

They couldn’t offer a cozy position surrounded by Pro Bowlers, they couldn’t offer wins or championships and they couldn’t offer a glamorous city with billions of dollars in potential endorsements. So all they could offer were fat contracts.

Tulloch’s signing proves that is no longer the case. Now, I’m not going to claim to be inside the man’s head, but no major free agent in his mid-20s signs a one-year deal if he thinks he’s going to disappear in his new destination (except maybe Drew Stanton).

Even if Tulloch’s ultimate goal is to cash in big next year (and honestly, it probably should be, given his age and talent level), it just means he thought Detroit was the best place to increase his stock. This, too, is unprecedented. When is the last time somebody thought signing with the Lions would make them look good?

I don’t know if Tulloch plans to re-sign a long-term deal with the Lions this year, or if he’ll be one-and-done, hoping he gets a more favorable deal next year in a calmer offseason.

What I do know is that Tulloch is in Detroit, and the fact that he came cheap is a huge shovelful of dirt on the “Same Old Lions” mantra.

The “Same Old Lions” don’t win free-agent negotiations. They overpay for whatever scrap pieces they can get to show up.

The 2011 Lions outmaneuver top free agents—and their top agents—and get who they want for what they want.

If it seems like a small victory, that’s because it is, in the grand scheme of things. But it may just be the harbinger of a lot more small victories—and maybe even some big ones—in the coming years.