Earlier this week, the Philadelphia Eagles made Saquon Barkley the highest paid running back in the NFL and also made him the first running back in NFL history to get over the $20 million a year benchmark.
The immediate response from Detroit Lions fans was that Jahmyr Gibbs is about to get paid huge too. Gibbs will be up for an extension after the 2025 season and it is expected to be a big one for sure. But how much will it be?
We worked with cap expert Joshua Queipo to come up with a projection for Gibbs’ deal. Here is what we have. First, here are his thoughts:
“If he were to come close to 2024’s production in 2025 he would actually have better two year numbers than Saquon in rushing touchdowns, receptions, receiving yards, total yards, total touchdowns, explosive runs, explosive run rate, total missed tackles forced, and missed tackles forced rate. He’d also be very close in rush yards.
All of that would give him a great case to surpass Barkley. But given that Gibbs is more of a chess piece weapon with a lot of his value coming in the passing game, I think the contractual comp would be Christian McCaffrey’s 2020 deal – inflated for salary cap inflation.
The reason we wouldn’t comp him to Saquon’s recent deal is because it’s a third contract for an older running back looking to guarantee money and Detroit will want Gibbs tied to a longer deal (likely a four-year extension). McCaffrey got $16M a year in 2020 on a $198.2M cap. Good chance cap rolls to $300M next year. Pushing McCaffrey’s 2020 deal to that cap would = $24M. That would be a 17% jump in the market, which seems aggressive. I’d expect a jump closer to 8%.”
With all that in mind, Gibbs’ projected extension would be a four-year deal worth $89 million with an average per year amount of $22.25 million a year. $40-45 million of that would be guaranteed.
That is a lot of money and it would likely make Gibbs the highest paid running back in the NFL. With this deal and the ones that Aidan Hutchinson, Jameson Williams, and Kerby Joseph are going to get, it’s really hard to see a world where the Lions are going to be able to keep everyone.
This is the downside to drafting so well. The Lions walked out of the 2023 NFL Draft with Gibbs, Brian Branch, Jack Campbell, and Sam LaPorta and they’re all going to command some big deals after the 2025 season. One of these guys is likely to be the odd man out when it comes down to it.
At the end of the day, we kind of knew this would be the case at some point. While you can say all day that the cap is a myth, eventually it catches up to you and you find yourself making moves you hate to free up cash. The Lions may find a way, but it’s likely to be very hard.