We finally saw some movement on the remaining 30 unsigned second round picks from the 2025 NFL Draft on their contracts
After weeks/months of waiting for the Panthers (and 29 other NFL teams for that matter) to get their 2nd round picks from this April’s draft signed to their rookie contracts, it looks like a domino may have dropped tonight that could spur some movement on that front.
The next big domino in the second round has fallen: 49ers’ second-round pick Alfred Collins, the No. 43rd overall selection, reached agreement tonight on a four-year, $10.3 million deal that includes over $9 million guaranteed and now is expected to trigger multiple second-round… pic.twitter.com/iiIWgOCh7p
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 17, 2025
For those that don’t know the backstory, I’ll provide a quick recap: as of the end of the 2025 NFL Draft, only 2 of the 32 players selected in the second round of the draft had signed their rookie contracts. If you are newer to the NFL Offseason, having that many draft picks unsigned going into training camp, especially all from one round, is not a normal thing. Typically, there’s a few niche situations where teams get wrapped up in negotiations with one of their draft picks with things like contract language and guaranteed money, but we have not seen a wide spread situation quite like this one since the implementation of the rookie wage scale in 2011.
Which, to give you a brief recap on that, essentially every rookie draft pick’s contract is subject to set guidelines based on what pick they were selected at, and what round that transpired in. Up until this point, most of the holdouts and stalled contract negotiations were very singular in nature, it was usually one particular player and one particular team, possibly a few of them but not anything widespread. Then, this off-season happened. The Houston Texans and the Cleveland Browns both gave their second round picks (WR Jayden Higgins and LB Carson Schwesinger, respectively) fully guaranteed contracts as the top two selections of the second round. This created quite the ripple effect, as fully guaranteed contracts for those players was not something that had happened in the past. For reference, Panthers RB Jonathon Brooks (46th overall selection in 2024) signed a contract with $6.2 million guaranteed out of a total $8.4 mil rookie contract, meaning approximately 74% of his rookie contract was guaranteed (contract figures via Spotrac). So while the overall dollar amounts aren’t that different in the grand scheme of things, 100% guaranteed is still significantly more than 74%.
So, prior to tonight we’ve seen the remaining 2nd round picks in the 2025 NFL Draft going unsigned as we inch closer to NFL training camp’s soft deadline. That all might have changed with this development, as the 49ers jumped the guaranteed money to at least 87% of the total contract numbers, as reported by Schefter. You may have seen me hanging out in the comments earlier, but it seemed all but expected that the teams would have to find some kind of middle ground in order to get these players to sign without seeing significant delays to their training camp schedule. It appears the first domino may have fallen, as this agent and franchise came to an amicable agreement in this particular situation and settled on a middle ground. But this should also set a baseline for the remaining 29 teams to come to a resolution.
Hopefully, this means EDGE Nic Scourton signs soon, possibly as early as tomorrow. What are your thoughts on this development, Panthers fans?