Rookies will report to NFL training camps across the league this week, but only two of the 32 players picked in the second round of the 2025 draft are under contract with their teams. New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough is, like everyone else, looking to follow the precedent set by the Cleveland Browns (with linebacker Carson Schwesinger) and Houston Texans (with wide receiver Jayden Higgins), who signed their second-round picks to fully-guaranteed deals.
Those moves rocked the boat to such a degree that rookie draft picks like Los Angeles Chargers second-round wideout Tre Harris, selected at No. 55, have chosen to hold out of camp until their contract disputes are resolved. Previously, second-round picks could expect to receive guaranteed money for the first two years of their contracts, and maybe part of Year 3. It’s one example but the Saints picked Isaiah Foskey at 40th overall in 2023 and signed him to a four-year contract valued at $8,734,722 with $6,731,557 of it guaranteed; that’s about 77.1%.
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But a year later that rate went down, not up, when the Philadelphia Eagles picked cornerback Cooper DeJean at No. 40 and guaranteed just a portion of his third-year salary, lowering his guarantees to $5,831,021 out of his $9,283,622 four-year contract value (or 62.8%). So while DeJean got a slightly bigger deal with a larger signing bonus ($3.57 million compared to Foskey’s $3.35 million) and more average money per year ($2.32 million against Foskey’s $2.18 million), less of it was guaranteed at signing than what Foskey got (by about $900,000). We know Shough’s raw numbers will climb a little higher just like DeJean. The question is whether his guarantees will match Foskey’s or surpass them.
That’s the kind of thing Shough’s agent is haggling with the Saints about now, which is true for 30 of the 32 second-round picks. All things considered, this is small potatoes; the NFL salary cap is expected to reach $300 million in the next year or two. Shough’s numbers will come in a little higher given the year-over-year increase in the rookie wage scale, but we’re talking about a difference of maybe $3.5 million here. That’s a little more than 1.2% of this year’s salary cap going towards signing your starting quarterback.
This will get resolved sooner or later. The question is whether it happens when Shough is scheduled to report with the rest of the Saints’ rookie class on July 22. It’s in Shough’s immediate interests to show up and compete for the starting job from Day 1, but favoring his long-term interests and getting that guaranteed money may be the better play here. Hopefully the Saints put the money on the table so it doesn’t become a distraction for all involved.
This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: Will Tyler Shough start the summer as a Saints training camp holdout?