Allen Park — It’s the deal everyone in Detroit has been waiting to get done. On Wednesday, star defensive end Aidan Hutchinson reached an agreement on an extension with the Detroit Lions.
Hutchinson’s agent, Mike McCartney, announced the four-year extension. According to a source familiar with the negotiations, the new money being added to the defender’s contract is $180 million, with $141 million in guarantees. The latter figure would be the largest for a non-quarterback in NFL history.
The deal ties Hutchinson to Detroit through the 2030 season when added to the two years he had remaining on his rookie contract.
The No. 2 pick in the 2022 draft, Hutchinson took little time to get acclimated to the NFL, racking up 9.5 sacks as a rookie. He’s steadily improved in the years since, tallying 11.5 sacks in his second season. And he had a league-leading 7.5 through five games a year ago, before a broken leg abruptly ended his push for Defensive Player of the Year.
Following surgery and a lengthy rehab, Hutchinson has picked up where he left off this season, dropping opposing quarterbacks behind the line six times through seven games, while racking up a league-high 48 total pressures.
Recently, Lions coach Dan Campbell was asked to put a value on Hutchinson’s impact.
“I don’t know if I can really put a value on that, because I don’t know if there’s a big enough number,” Campbell said. “I mean, he’s extremely valuable. The number of things that he’s able to do for us in the run and the pass game, it takes up — he pulls a lot of slack, man. You talk about pulling your weight, he pulls his weight and then some. He requires a lot of resources offensively, which helps everybody else out.
“…He is a complete football player,” Campbell continued. “He does it all. He’s disruptive, he’s violent, he’s high motor, he’s crafty, he’s explosive, he’s tough, he’s competitive. He does it all.”
Prior to the extension, Detroit had Hutchinson under contractual control through the 2026 season after exercising the fifth-year option on his rookie deal in April.
That gave both sides time to carefully work out the parameters of the massive deal. Of course, with each passing month, those numbers swelled as the league’s other top edge rushers secured new contracts.
It started with Myles Garrett in March. After the former Defensive Player of the Year requested a trade from Cleveland, he eventually agreed to stay under a revised deal that included four years and $160 million in new money.
That temporarily reset the bar for non-quarterbacks, something Lions general manager Brad Holmes said the team anticipated during the league meetings in the spring.
“Look, it is what it is,” Holmes said. “We had it in that range, kind of already, when we do our future planning and budgeting. But, then, obviously, when it goes up, it just goes up. That’s just what you’ve got to prepare for. I don’t know what it will end up being. That’s the difficult part about our job, but we work really hard in terms of the prediction forecasting of that market. He’s just one of many that we’ve had to budget.”
A few months after Garrett’s deal, Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt agreed to a three-year extension averaging $41 million per season. But both paled in comparison to Micah Parsons, who, after securing a trade out of Dallas, scored a four-year pact from the Packers at $46.5 million per year.
That last domino set the table for the Lions and Hutchinson to get their negotiations across the finish line.
Hutchinson becomes the latest in a growing list of Lions players to earn long-term deals from the franchise.
Since 2023, the team has inked quarterback Jared Goff, offensive tackle Penei Sewell, wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, defensive tackle Alim McNeill and safety Kerby Joseph to deals at or near the top of the market at their respective positions. Additionally, the team has also locked up Jameson Williams, Derrick Barnes, Taylor Decker and David Montgomery to lucrative extensions in the past year.
Of note, Hutchinson, Sewell, St. Brown, McNeill, Joseph and Williams were all Holmes draft picks.
Next offseason, the front office will need to contend with another round of talent deserving of paydays, as the 2023 draft class becomes eligible for refreshed deals. That star-studded group includes running back Jahmyr Gibbs, tight end Sam LaPorta, safety Brian Branch and linebacker Jack Campbell.
Terms aren't out yet, and first batch of reports will be max value, but I expect the new money to be the most ever for a non-QB.
I just like the way this Lion's front office goes about it's business. If they are a great player, they say it. They seem grateful to have to pay the core players what is needed. Brad always says they have a financial plan and they negotiate before the need arises. So hat's off to the cap guru and the rest of the organization.