One of these days Aidan Hutchinson is going to get a huge pay raise from the Detroit Lions.
It's inevitable.
He had 21 sacks in his first two NFL seasons. Last season he was on pace for 25.5 before he was injured in Week 5.
He's so good that the Lions apparently have to change the rules at practice for the offense to get reps in because they simply can't stop him.
A guy like that is always going to end up in the upper echelon of pay at his position, so why are the Lions still waiting to get this deal done?
Just today, Brad Holmes revealed that Hutchinson and the Lions haven't "had really any intense talks yet."
"Look, we’ll definitely get some dialogue going soon here, but those things take time, especially the larger the deal is," Holmes added on 97.1 The Ticket.
This is a big mistake.
Edge rusher salaries have skyrocketed this offseason with huge deals for Max Crosby, Myles Garrett, and T.J. Watt. They are only going to keep getting bigger with the salary cap regularly increasing and Micah Parson ready to get paid himself.
Whenever Hutchinson gets his extension, it should put him at least in the top three at the position if not the highest-paid edge outright.
So why would you wait and keep letting that number get higher?
This should be a pretty easy negotiation. Watt is the highest paid player at the position at $41 million per year. The Lions should just add a couple of million dollars to that and get a deal done with Hutchinson.
By the time the deal takes effect in two years, the salary cap will have increased and contracts around the league will have already started to catch up.
If the Lions wait then changes in the market (especially the potential for Parson to reset the market with his extension) and Hutchinson's play during the 2025 season could have them looking at having to pay Hutchinson somewhere approaching $50 million per year.
Waiting to get a deal done is just going to cost the Lions money and you would think a team that has been very careful about their money this offseason would want to save as much as they can.
The Lions need to listen to John Malkovich and his bad accent from Rounders and just "pay that man his money."
Hutchinson, Holmes haven't gotten deep into negotiation talks
Holmes told 97.1 The Ticket on Monday that he has yet to get into the nitty gritty of extension talks with Hutchinson.
"We’ll definitely get some dialogue going soon here, but those things take time, especially the larger the deal is," said Holmes about getting something done with Hutchinson.
Hutchinson could be looking at a massive offer considering how much some other star pass rushers have gotten on the market just this offseason alone. Cleveland Browns DE Myles Garrett signed a new deal with the team for four years and $160 million. Pittsburgh Steelers pass rusher T.J. Watt just got an extension worth $123 million over three years.
Disgruntled pass rushers still on the market include Trey Hendrickson and now Micah Parsons, which more so speaks to the cheapness of those respective players' franchises than what their talent is worth. Both could easily net similar deals to that of Garrett and Watt - the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys simply don't want to pay them.
The Lions cannot afford to make that same mistake. They have a ton of cap flexibility this season, but as we get into 2026 and 2027, things severely tighten up with other extensions set to kick in for players like Jared Goff and Amon-Ra St. Brown. Hutchinson can and will command a deal somewhere in the range of Garrett and Watt's contracts.
Whether Holmes is open to cutting lose some other high earning playmakers in the process of keeping Hutchinson on board is up the air.
