ESPN: $7.5 million Former All-Pro Selected as a Lions Cut Candidate
This summer, it appears that being named an All-Pro might not be enough to secure your spot on the Detroit Lions squad. Following a poor 15-2 season, the Lions will need to make some important decisions in the coming months. Some of those choices have to do with who they must fire in order to free up cap space.
Just last season, a player whose name has been mentioned as a possible cut recipient was named an All-Pro. During the 2025 NFL offseason, John Witicar of Pride of Detroit mentioned Lions special teamer Jalen Reeves-Maybin as a possible cap casualty for the team.
Reeves-Maybin has been with the Lions for the majority of his NFL career. After being selected by Detroit in the fourth round of the 2017 draft, he played for the team for the next five years, however he only started every game in one of those years. The Houston Texans then terminated him midway through a two-year deal after he had been with them for a year.
Taking advantage of this chance, the Lions signed him to a one-year contract. During that season, Reeves-Maybin made a significant contribution. His performance on special teams earned him a berth on the All-Pro second team and in the Pro Bowl. He was rewarded by the Lions with a $7.5 million two-year deal. That hasn’t exactly gone as planned. In 2024, he made 14 tackles in just 10 games while missing an incredible 17.6% of his tackle attempts.
The Lions now have to make a significant choice. According to Spotrac, Reeves-Maybin has a $4.75 million cap hit for the 2025 season. By eliminating him, the Lions can save $2 million of that. The true question here is how much you want to spend on special teams guys, much like with Kalif Raymond, who has also emerged as a cut candidate. It’s a special teams player in this instance who hasn’t had a very successful season. Given that he just had a season marred by frequent injury problems and that his 30th birthday is rapidly approaching, Reeves-Maybin is another guy who would make perfect sense to release if the organization believes they can spend that $2 million elsewhere.
