Lions continue the latest NFL trend and set a franchise record with their signing of second-round pick Derrick Moore
The Lions get their second-round pick signed to a kind of deal the franchise has never done before
If you’ve been reading our stuff here at AtoZ Sports Detroit, you know we’ve been talking about this since the 2026 NFL Draft. What is going to happen when the Lions sign second-round pick Derric Moore to his rookie deal?
You might remember that the Lions didn’t wind up signing last year’s second-round pick, Tate Ratledge, to his rookie deal until July 17th. That was just three days before they started training camp on the 20th.
The holdup was all based on the Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns giving Jayden Higgins and Carson Schwesinger fully guaranteed contracts, respectively. That caused the agents in the rest of the second round to see if they could get their clients the same type of deal.
The expectation was that this trend would continue in 2026 and that maybe it would cause the Lions some trouble, like last season. At the very least, it would put them in a position where they might have to wait. We now know that is not the case.
The Lions are continuing the trend by signing Derrick Moore to a fully guaranteed deal
A pretty big deal for the Lions. This is their first full guaranteed second-round pick ever. Not even Sam LaPorta or Brian Branch got a deal like this.
This was seen coming to a degree. On Monday, we wrote about how the Raiders gave 38th Treadyn Stukes a fully guaranteed deal and how the Jets gave D’Angelo Ponds a 90% guarantee. It felt like the NFL might stretch this out a little more than last year, when it was the 33rd through 40th picks who got full guaranteed deals. Moore fit right into that sweet spot.
Now, if you’re the teams that have to make a deal after the Lions have their done with Moore, one of those teams has to be the one who puts a stop to it before you get to 50, where we know it’s already done. Eventually, every second-round pick is going to get a fully guaranteed deal. The Lions are now one of the teams at the forefront of adopting that trend instead of trying to buck it.
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