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Why are only two 2025 NFL second-round picks signed so far?
Simple, the Cleveland Browns and Houston Texans threw a monkey wrench into the second contract market by giving linebacker Carson Schwesinger and wide receiver Jayden Higgins full guaranteed contracts, respectively.
And now the rest of the teams are paying a price for it, because they don’t want to go there.
Schwesinger and Higgins, who were picked 33 and 34 overall, got fully guaranteed contracts.
You don’t often see guaranteed second-round contracts.
For instance, the last time the Jets had a second-round pick before this year was in 2023, when they selected Wisconsin center Joe Tippmann.
Tippmann signed a 4-year, $8,359,598 contract with $6,167,661 guaranteed.
So now fast forward to 2025, after Cleveland and Houston did what they did at the top of the second round, with fully guaranteed deals for second-rounders, the rest of the unsigned second-round players, and their agents, are asking teams to follow suit, and they don’t want to.
So Jets second-round pick, LSU tight end Mason Taylor, is still unsigned, along with 29 other NFL second-rounders.
“The deadline for Chargers rookies to report is upon us and second-round WR Tre Harris is officially a holdout, sources say,” announced NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport. “With 30 of the 32 second-round picks unsigned because of a disagreement over guaranteed money, Harris makes the first official stand.”
It’s kind of interesting that the Browns are at the tip of the spear of this contract controversy, because in 2022, they gave quarterback Deshaun Watson a fully guaranteed, five-year, $230 million deal, and this pissed off other owners, making it harder for them to negotiate with starting quarterbacks.
In the past, often with a deal like Watson got for $230 million guaranteed, you see something like $170-$180 million gauranteed, which makes it a little easier to get out of the contract, a few years in, if the quarterback doesn’t play well, gets hurt, or both in the case of Watson.
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, whose organization was negotiating with quarterback Lamar Jackson at the time of the Watson deal, was livid with the Browns for what they did with Watson, and if you recall, that Jackson deal took a long time to get down, thanks to Watson’s full guarantee.
So now the Browns have done it again, setting a bad precedent that is making it hard for the rest of the league.
You know darn well, when the next Collective Bargaining Agreement is negotiated between the NFL and NFLPA, there will be something baked into the cake to avoid this new issues with second-round picks.
This is a bad look for the league to have 30 of 32 second-round picks unsigned, with some camps already open, and others about to open.
Who knows what the solution is this summer, under the current CBA, but it’s highly unlikely all 30 of the other teams, aside from Cleveland and Houston, are going to cave and give their second-round picks fully guaranteed contracts.
A lot of second-round picks don’t work out. There are often reasons players slip to the second round, and teams want to protect themselves.
July 15, 2025
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