If not for suffering a broken fibula and tibia in his left leg in Week 6 last season, Detroit Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson would have likely run away with Defensive Player of the Year. He was medically cleared in plenty of time for OTAs this spring, with training camp and pads coming on as the next big test.
Hutchinson is eligible for a contract extension. The top of the edge rusher market is now $40 million per year (Myles Garrett), pending new deals for T.J. Watt and Micah Parsons. As SI.com's John Maakaron noted, the new deal Watt wants (and deserves) could be a problem for the Lions in their negotiations with Hutchinson.
Any questions about Hutchinson having a seamless immediate return from such a significant injury are natural, and that adds another potential layer of complication to the negotiations.
It was a matter of procedure, but the Lions picked up Hutchinson's fifth-year option for 2026 ($19.87 million) as it was always clear they would. So he's under contract for two more years.
Fellow 'Michigan Man' gives Aidan Hutchinson some career advice
On Thursday's edition of "Costa and Jansen" on 97.1 The Ticket, co-host Jim Costa asked co-host Jon Jansen "from one Michigan great to another" how he'd advise Hutchinson in light of their not being a contract extension done.
Jansen of course is a Michigan alum (and Michigan native) like Hutchinson. He also played offensive tackle for 11 seasons in the NFL, including the final season of his career (2009) back home with the Lions.
Jansen started by noting how the Lions have gotten a lot of other draft picks who have become impact players (Penei Sewell, Amon-St. Brown, etc.) signed to contract extensions by this point in their career track. He added, and Costa backed up, how it's been silent in terms of any reports of the Lions and Hutchinson working on a contract. Some of that is a product of it being slower time on the NFL calendar right now, but it's a fair overall point.
Jansen acknowledged the potential back-and-forth in negotiations. The Lions may need more proof Hutchinson is fully healthy, while Hutchinson may be willing to bet on himself if the current offer is not quite to his liking.
Costa brought the conversation back to the hypothetical that Hutchinson would ask Jansen for advice on what he should do, perhaps with an offer sitting on the table from the Lions. Jansen expressed some regret about his own career, during which he said he routinely did his next contract early, before hitting free agency.
While Hutchinson is under contract for the next two years, Jansen's advice did not shift based on that.
"I would tell him, ‘Bet on yourself. Go out there and be the best version of Aidan Hutchinson", Jansen said. "Be the guy that had the 7.5 sacks in five games, that ended the year having the most sacks on the Lions despite only playing in five games. And I don’t care, everybody always says, ‘Oh, he was playing against backups.’ It doesn’t matter, they’re all NFL linemen and he’s gonna have that opportunity over the course of 17 games to be playing against stud tackles and be playing against guys that are simply playing because there are guys that are hurt. So you can rack up a bunch of sacks, you can be the guy that everybody thought you were gonna be when you got drafted."
The Lions and Hutchinson not getting a contract extension done until next offseason is not an entirely new idea. Michael Ginnitti of Spotrac predicted the team would "table" an extension until the 2026 offseason.
In light of the the money that's out there for Hutchinson, Jansen went a step further.
"The difference of when I played and when Aidan’s playing is the amount of money, and where he was drafted, he was a first-round pick", Jansen said. "But the money has 100 percent exploded. I would tell him, ‘Bet on yourself, go out there, have a dominant year.’ I would almost say, ‘Bet on yourself for the next two years, push it to free agency.’ Make them decide, ‘Do we want to use the franchise tag on you? Or do we want to give you a record-setting deal?"
Jansen then went a little further to reinforce the idea Hutchinson should bet on himself.
"He has all the public support on his side," Jansen said. "We're talking about trying to find someone opposite of him, could you imagine if we got to a world where he's too expensive for the Lions and they decide he is the odd man out? This place would blow up. Bet on yourself, because you have all the leverage."
The holdup in contract negotiations may be Hutchinson holding the line and waiting for, as an example, new deals to be done for Watt, Parsons and maybe Trey Hendrickson to set his market value a notch or two higher.
It's still a matter of time before the Lions make Hutchinson one of the highest-paid edge rushers in the NFL (if no the highest-paid, for however long that lasts). That time just might not be before the 2025 season starts, or before next offseason. If a perceived stalemate lasts beyond that, then things will get very interesting.
