There it is. The Detroit Lions have signed Aidan Hutchinson to a huge four-year extension, according to multiple reports on Wednesday. This is huge for two reasons.

The Lions’ signing Hutchinson to an extension proves 2 big things

There were a couple of questions we got answers to with this deal. The first one is the big one. Did Hutchinson’s leg injury in 2024 worry the Lions and cause them not to pay Hutchinson the big money? The answer is no. He has balled out this season and leads the NFL in pressures with 48. He also has seven sacks on top of it. He’s in line for Comeback Player of the Year at this point.

We’ll have to wait until the full details of the contract come out. However, we can at least speculate that there could be some protections built into the front end of this deal that the Lions could utilize if Hutchinson doesn’t get back to the guy we saw in the first six weeks of last season. But we can tell you that so far, he’s looked like that guy.

Even still, this deal is a strong indication that the Lions feel great about his health and see him as a long-term big piece of their defense, and that they believe what they’ve been seeing from him so far this season is not a mirage.

The second question was really more of a confirmation. After looking into how Hutchinson’s agent, Mike McCartney, does his deals, it showed that he traditionally gets them done in July or later. That was the case for Hutchinson’s teammate Alim McNeill, who got his deal in October, too, and now it’s the case for Hutchinson. 

It’s fair to note that the Lions getting this done later could be more about who they were negotiating with than about waiting to see how Hutchinson’s recovery was going. The Lions were open about how they felt his recovery was going all offseason, and he’s played incredibly well so far in 2025.

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