Shortly after this year’s NFL Draft, the Houston Texans signed second-round pick Jayden Higgins to a rookie contract.
It was the kind of routine move that ordinarily might go unnoticed, except in this case it came with a twist that few around the league saw coming.
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The Texans awarded Higgins a fully guaranteed contract, the first ever for an NFL draft pick selected in the second round or later. The former Iowa State wide receiver will bank $11.7 million over the next four years even if he sustains a career-threatening injury or the Texans sour on him and release him.
Higgins’ historic contract has triggered a league-wide standoff. Agents for other second-round picks are pushing for fully guaranteed deals — or at least for more guaranteed money than previous players in their draft slot have secured. NFL teams have been reluctant to set an unfavorable precedent by making such concessions.
As rookies begin to report to NFL training camps this week, 30 of the 32 players taken in the second round in April remain unsigned. One exception is Higgins, the second pick in the second round. The other is Carson Schwesinger, the player selected one spot ahead of him. Perhaps aware that their leverage had eroded, the Cleveland Browns gave Schwesinger a fully guaranteed $11.8 million rookie contract the day after Higgins signed his deal.
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The question now is whether the prized second-round picks selected after Schwesinger and Higgins will have the stomach to stand united and fight for similar deals.
Los Angeles Chargers’ second-round pick Tre Harris became the first training camp absentee earlier this week when he did not report with the rest of the team’s rookies. An NFLPA spokesperson told Yahoo Sports that the union is “monitoring this situation closely” in hopes that the players selected in the second round can take advantage of a rare opportunity to overturn a long-established precedent.
“We work alongside the players and their agents to help them secure the best deal possible, while acknowledging that our members can organize as they see fit for the collective benefit of their financial futures,” the NFLPA spokesperson said.
Rookie holdouts were once an annual staple of the buildup to the NFL regular season. In 2007, No. 1 overall pick JaMarcus Russell did not sign until early September when the Raiders caved to his demands by offering a six-year, $68 million contract. That holdout was brief compared to a 2009 standoff between receiver Michael Crabtree and the San Francisco 49ers that stretched four games into the regular season. Or a 2002 impasse between Bryant McKinnie and the Minnesota Vikings that lasted into November.
Sagas like those became far more rare 14 years ago when the NFL grew tired of unproven draft picks earning salaries that rivaled those of perennial all-pros. The 2011 collective bargaining agreement introduced a rookie wage scale that established a hard ceiling for rookie contracts and rigid financial guidelines for each draft slot. All rookie contracts are four years in length, though teams have the right to exercise an option after the third year of the deal to add a fifth year for first-round picks.
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How much guaranteed money a draft pick receives is one of the few remaining negotiable terms in NFL rookie contracts. It wasn’t until 2022 that every first-round pick managed to negotiate a fully guaranteed contract. Last year, second-round guarantees ranged from 95.7% for No. 33 overall pick Keon Coleman of the Buffalo Bills to 52.4% for No. 64 overall pick Renardo Green of the San Francisco 49ers.
The last 2024 second-round pick to secure any guaranteed money in the fourth year of his rookie deal was cornerback Max Melton of the Arizona Cardinals. The 43rd pick in the 2024 draft would still receive $50,000 from the Cardinals in 2027 even if the team opts to release him before then.
Last year, all second-round picks signed in time for training camp. This year, all second-round picks participated in OTAs and minicamps, but it remains to be seen how many will show up to training camps — every team will have begun camp by July 23 — without a signed contract.
Two key figures in the standoff could be quarterback Tyler Shough of the New Orleans Saints and running back Quinshon Judkins of the Cleveland Browns. Shough, the No. 40 overall pick in this year’s draft, is the Saints’ potential starting quarterback as a rookie, giving him ample leverage to fight for a fully guaranteed deal. Judkins, the No. 36 pick in this year’s draft, was arrested Saturday on a domestic violence charge, reducing his bargaining power in contract negotiations with the Browns.
Tyler Shough is expected to compete for the starting quarterback job in New Orleans, and yet he remains one of 30 second-round picks still unsigned. (Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images)
(Derick E. Hingle via Getty Images)
While the money at stake isn’t especially high for NFL teams worth billions of dollars, the consequences for current and future second-round picks are significant. The average career length for an NFL player is barely three years. Even second-round picks can’t count on sticking with their original team for the entirety of their four-year rookie contracts.
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Overthecap.com studied how long second-round picks drafted from 2015-2022 remained with the team that selected them. Nearly 97% lasted at least two seasons with their original team, but only about 84% stuck around three-plus seasons and only about 62% made it through four or more. Those numbers show why fully guaranteed money in the third and fourth year of rookie deals is a point of contention for second-round picks seeking greater financial security and NFL teams hesitant to give away money.
Whereas NFL veterans who hold out for a new deal are subject to fines for every day of training camp that they miss, rookies actually have more leverage. NFL teams can’t punish them the same way because they haven’t signed a contract. Plus, the importance of training camp and preseason games is greater for rookies who need time to adjust to the NFL, meaning teams have extra motivation to get would-be contributors into camp as soon as possible.
What happens next? A lot could depend on negotiations between Shough and the Saints.
If the Saints want to avoid their potential Week 1 starting quarterback arriving late to training camp and missing valuable preseason reps, then they might need to fully guarantee his rookie contract. That could give everyone drafted before pick No. 40 further leverage to demand the same, while those selected after Shough would likely benefit from a cascading guarantee rate.
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