The NFL Players Association, reeling from criminal investigations into misused funds, resignations at the top and unapproved strip club expenditures, badly needed a win this summer.
It found one -- in NFL ownership's couch cushions.
The players received a substantial windfall in the second round of this year's NFL draft, benefiting from fully guaranteed contracts for seven players in the round -- and potentially an eighth once Cleveland Browns running back Quinshon Judkins (the 36th overall pick) signs his deal. (Judkins, who had misdemeanor battery charges related to domestic violence dropped earlier this month, remains under an NFL investigation that has delayed his negotiations.)
These signings made history for the second round, which had been entirely composed of partially guaranteed deals up to this point.
The 2025 draft produced total guarantees of $247.2 million for that round, up from $185.7 million the previous year, per NFLPA figures. The 2025 projection was $225.4 million in guaranteed money based on annual rookie pay scale bumps and past percentage points of guarantees. This year's numbers surpassed that projection by around $21.8 million.
Rookie contracts rarely elicit drama, given how the current NFL wage scale sets the total worth of each deal. But there are still items to negotiate, including how the signing bonus is paid, the overall guarantees and offset language.
And this year, 30 second-rounders remained unsigned as rookies began reporting for camp last month. Wide receiver Tre Harris, selected 55th overall, would offer a litmus test -- his Los Angeles Chargers were the first NFL team to report. But Harris did not appear at camp until his contract was done -- on July 17, five days after he was scheduled to show up with his fellow Chargers rookies. Harris would end up with 71.3% guaranteed money, up from 60.2% for the No. 55 choice in last year's draft, a victory for second-rounders that would play out several times over in the subsequent weeks -- and bring delight to the union.
"This is a tremendous win that will literally pay dividends for our union's current and future members," NFLPA director of salary cap Adam Richelieu said in a statement. Richelieu serves as a liaison between the union and player agents. "In working with this class of rookies, it was encouraging to see that they already had a strong understanding of their value and leverage, which played a big role in the dominoes falling the way that they did. We take our hats off to this group of second rounders and their agents for their collective work to achieve this historic moment in the business of football." Many contract negotiations are a fight, and the NFL's biggest almost always center around guaranteed money. This one will linger, with potential ripple effects for years to come.
How it got done
It was July 16, and new Saints quarterback Tyler Shough was throwing with a few of his new teammates in the Dallas area.
Shough's agent, Erik Burkhardt, watched the session while working the phones to gauge the latest chatter around the second round. He compared notes and percentage points with other agents and the NFLPA. He checked with team officials he trusted.
Burkhardt had a vested interest -- Shough was pick No. 40, within range of a fully guaranteed deal but without a contract just six days before Saints rookies were due to report.
Deepening the intrigue was Shough's position -- the Saints were prepping a quarterback battle of which Shough was poised to be a key figure.
The previous year's No. 40 pick, Philadelphia corner Cooper DeJean, received 80.46% of his contract guaranteed, up from around 77% for the No. 40 pick the previous year. A normally slotted deal would have kept Shough well short of 100%.
But an issue was bubbling to the surface -- players were withholding services. Along with Harris, second-round picks of the Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks did not report with their rookie classes on July 15. Two of those teams, the Dolphins and Seahawks, had picks who were selected ahead of Shough.
What triggered the holding pattern: On May 8, the Houston Texans broke precedent when agreeing with agent Chris Cabott on a fully guaranteed deal for No. 34 overall pick Jayden Higgins. The pick before Higgins, Browns linebacker Carson Schwesinger, got his fully guaranteed deal a day later. Steve Caric, one of Schwesinger's representatives, said he and fellow agent C.J. Laboy were confident they were getting a fully guaranteed deal regardless of Higgins' contract. But Houston's deal certainly didn't hurt.
And if teams were counting on player agents to get deals done expediently without regard to the market, given how quickly camps were approaching, they did not get their wish.
"We have to see what happens in front of us," said Burkhardt about his mid-July strategy as Shough and every other player selected from No. 35 through No. 64 remained unsigned. "Nobody wants to be the cliffhanger."
But the action was a few picks behind him. Defensive tackle Alfred Collins, the 43rd overall pick by the 49ers, was closing in on a deal to loosen the logjam.
Klutch Sports president of football Nicole Lynn, who represents Collins, consulted with Richelieu and set a goal for a percentage of guaranteed money. They reached a total guarantee of around 88%, equivalent to what the 35th overall pick, Atlanta defensive lineman Ruke Orhorhoro, got last year.
Lynn had relayed to San Francisco that "this is where the market was going" with increased guarantees and the 49ers were understanding, she said. Plus, Lynn says the team wanted Collins in the building and Collins wanted to be there, too.
Stepping out and putting the Collins deal to paper came with risk for Lynn. If Collins signed what was perceived to be a bad deal, it could have had a negative impact on the rest of the second-rounders awaiting their deals. Instead, it kept the ball rolling for everyone else.
"Nobody wants to be the first. I can't relate to that," said Lynn, who represents Collins with Chris Coy. "I just kept telling myself, scared money don't make money."
As soon as the Collins deal broke the night of July 16, Richelieu and the NFLPA went on a calling spree to agents representing clients in the second round, urging them to insist on a similar eight-pick guaranteed money increase from the previous draft. The calls went until about 2 a.m. ET.
"You can say what you want about the NFLPA, but this doesn't happen without them," Lynn said.
Picks started to fly off the board behind Collins, and between Thursday night and Saturday morning, four of the second-round picks ahead of Shough agreed to fully guaranteed deals with their teams.
Burkhardt says Shough had told him to "max it out" and assured him that he was comfortable waiting at least a little longer to sign.
By Saturday morning, the Saints and Shough reached agreement on a fully guaranteed deal. The pact also includes an annual roster bonus structure that is unique to non-first-round picks, whereby Shough receives much of his compensation each year during the first week of training camp.
In a situation without much built-in leverage, players must fight for every concession that they hope produces long-term benefits, Burkhardt said.
"It's a bigger picture -- drip, drip, drip," Burkhardt said. "If you can look up in 10 or 12 years and most of the draft is fully guaranteed, then most of these players that became a story fought for something."
What the teams think
Some teams are rankled by that bigger picture drip and fought precedent for months leading up to the mid-July deals.
A chief concern was that this trend will eventually escalate and mean more guaranteed money later in the draft. That's a problem for teams, which know the chance of a player panning out diminishes the later they're selected. If a team cuts a player on a fully guaranteed four-year contract after two years, the team is on the hook for a large portion of that deal, barring offset language if or when he signs with another team.
The risk of giving more guaranteed money to a player who doesn't pan out is lesser in the second round than in the third round and beyond. Only two second-round picks from the 2020 draft were released while on their rookie contracts by the teams that drafted them, though several others were traded.
The risk is especially great in Rounds 4 through 7, which gives teams pause about the possibility of guaranteed money trickling into that area of the draft.
"It's stupid on the teams that are allowing this stuff," one AFC executive said. "Having guaranteed contracts in this league universally is not something that works. You can't go to camp with 90 guys with guarantees in contracts. You're going to be paying guys not on your team as much or more than guys on the team. That's the slippery slope with this. So I think there's desperation (from teams) in getting things done and I don't think we have a lot of hardcore negotiators that can put up with the heat."
Some others don't feel as strongly, with one high-ranking team official calling the second-round guarantees "pennies in the couch cushion" that won't affect the way veteran contracts are done.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles falls somewhere in between. Poles said the Bears recognize the "waterfall" that's happening, with more rookie deals likely to be guaranteed in the future.
"So we try to honor that part of the business -- it's rolling so we have to adjust accordingly," Poles said. "I don't think it's anything we stay up at night worrying about, but we try to honor the way that it trickles down in a natural progression. Just like inflation, it happens."
The early second-round picks are almost like a "backup 1," or backup first-rounder, Poles said, just without the fifth-year option. But those players are often late-first-round options for many teams. So guaranteeing them is seen as sensible in some league circles because the value of those spots has increased.
"But the probability of those guys making it to [their] second contract goes down as you go through the draft, so eventually (the guarantees) do add up," he said.
Rising guarantees could fuel discussion on the practicality of a 90-man roster during the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, the AFC executive proposed.
Answering the industry perception that he kicked off this player-friendly trend by giving Higgins the first full guarantee of the second round, Caserio downplayed the impact when asked by local media at the start of camp, calling it "much ado about nothing" and citing the small percentage increases in the guarantees each year.
What the players think
The NIL era has produced well-known NFL rookies who are entering the league with more financial security than their predecessors.
Was waiting to sign a contract more palatable to players because money was permitted to be in their pockets as college players?
"I would say so, to be honest with you," said Harris, a former Ole Miss star. "It's a different world we live in. But at the same time, I have an agent for a reason. To be completely honest with you, I don't know too much about the whole situation. I just let that be what it is and be what it be."
One personnel man from an NFL team recently recalled visiting a player in the pre-draft process -- in a home he just bought his mother, presumably with NIL money.
While NIL earnings are not necessarily related to agents fighting for better NFL contracts, the Browns' Schwesinger said the college deals do provide "financial literacy" that helps.
Both teams and player reps agree that the new college payment paradigm is at least a factor.
Henderson added that he learned a lot "in the business space" from NIL, helping him prepare for the NFL when responsibilities for a player increase.
That doesn't make the contract stalemates from mid-July any easier.
Multiple second-round rookies acknowledged that waiting to sign a contract was a challenge. While veterans holding out have proven their worth over three or four years in the league, rookies are eager to make an early impression.
The Bengals' first-round pick, Shemar Stewart, withheld his services over guarantees and the contract language in his deal, but he signed July 26 when both sides made concessions.
"It was hard. But I definitely learned to just be patient and wait on the Lord," Henderson said. "When God tells me to move, I move...I just wanted to be out here with the guys and growing with this team and trying to help be a part of this team and establish a role."
In the moment, Harris recognized the business challenges at hand.
"The only thing I was really upset about [was] just not being in the building, being able to play," Harris said.
The hope among all sides is that these deals get handled earlier, but don't be surprised if this year's stalemates are a sign of things to come.
Caric, a Wasserman agent who also represents Rams tight end and No. 46 overall pick Terrance Ferguson, said he was willing to wait for Shough to sign before getting Ferguson's deal done, even if that meant blowing past the Rams' July 22 reporting date.
He says while maximizing guaranteed money on rookie deals is important, it's a bridge to something else: the second contract.
"You're fighting for more dollars in the fourth year of the deal, but the hope is you're not playing under the fourth year and your player is getting an extension."
ESPN's Mike Reiss and Kris Rhim contributed to this report
