Since being taken No. 2 overall in the 2022 draft, Aidan Hutchinson has been everything the Detroit Lions hoped he’d be. If not for a broken leg in Week 6 last season, he might have won Defensive Player of the Year as he posted 7.5 sacks in less than five full games.
Of course being three seasons into his career also means Hutchinson is eligible for a contract extension this offseason. The Lions can pick up his fifth-year option by May 1, but that may just serve as a placeholder for an extension. He’s looking to be ready for the offseason program as he nears the end of his rehab from that broken leg,
The Lions have been proactive about signing core players to contract extensions (Amon-Ra St. Brown, Penei Sewell, Jared Goff, Alim McNeill), and it’s only a matter of time before Hutchinson is one of the highest-paid edge rushers in the league. If not the highest-paid edge rusher in the league.
Brad Holmes drops Aidan Hutchinson contract nugget into broader edge rusher conversation
On Tuesday in Indianapolis at the NFL Combine, Lions general manager Brad Holmes basically declared that adding another high-end edge rusher was not going to happen this offseason with cost of a veteran addition an obvious factor.
“Just because we lost a star pass rusher due to injury, that doesn’t mean that other teams are going to say, ‘Hey, we have a star pass rusher. I know that you lost one, but we have one. Would you like to have this one?’” Holmes said, with a smile. “No, that’s a star pass rusher for that team, and they’re trying to win games…Those guys are hard to find. That’s why it’s called a premium position. Yeah, those guys are hard to acquire. And it’s hard to keep them financially.”
“Again, we have one that’s due for an extension and we’ve already kind of gotten to the planning stages about him already,” Holmes said. “When you talk about adding another, it’s can you financially add another one? Because you want to add the other one on top of everything else you already have and that makes it tough.”
That last part is obviously in reference to Hutchinson and his looming contract extension. What exactly encompasses “planning stages” is unclear, but it is clear the process to keep Hutchinson a Lion for a long time to come is underway (as expected).
