With the Detroit Lions 2024-25 season coming to a close, their roster begins its transition to the offseason. While most of the attention is paid to the Lions’ pending free agents, the players from Detroit’s 2022 draft class enter a unique phase of their rookie contracts.

Eligibility for fifth-year options

This offseason, the members of the Lions 2022 draft class who remain on Detroit’s roster will be entering the final year of their rookie contract and therefore become eligible for contract extensions. Additionally, players who were drafted in the first round are also eligible for a team-held fifth-year option.

That means, Aidan Hutchinson and Jameson Williams are eligible for an extension and a fifth-year option, while Josh Paschal, Kerby Joseph, and Malcolm Rodriguez are only eligible for extensions. The remaining players from that draft class—James Mitchell, James Houston, and Chase Lucas—are no longer under contract with the Lions.

How the fifth-year option works

For Hutchinson and Williams, they enter the fourth year of their rookie contracts, which are set to expire after the 2025 season. However, if the team elects to apply their fifth-year option, it would extend the length of the contract through 2026 by adding a fully guaranteed fifth year.

The NFL pre-determines the value of a player’s fifth-year option by applying three factors: 1) draft slot, 2) playing time, and 3) Pro Bowl selections. The popular salary cap website OverTheCap.com, does a good job of breaking down what those fifth-year options costs would look like for each player eligible, based on the incentives triggered.

Hutchinson’s fifth-year option projection

For Hutchinson, he was drafted No. 2 overall, met the playing time incentives, and was selected to ONE Pro Bowl in 2023-24, meaning his contract moves up to the third tier.

OTC is projecting a fifth-year option of $22,612,000 (fully guaranteed) for the 2026 season.

Williams’ fifth-year option projection

For Williams, he was drafted with the No. 12 overall pick, but failed to meet the playtime incentives and was not selected to a Pro Bowl, therefore he remains at the lowest tier available for his draft position.

OTC is projecting a fifth-year option of $15,161,000 (fully guaranteed) for the 2026 season.

Deadline to apply fifth-year option

The NFL wants to give teams a reasonable amount of time to make a determination on a player’s fifth-year option and therefore allows each organization to wait until the conclusion of free agency and the NFL draft before assigning a deadline. Each year, the NFL sets the deadline for fifth-year options to be exactly one week after the first day of the NFL Draft.

In 2025, the deadline to apply a fifth-year option to an eligible player is May 1.

Can a team give a fifth-year option player a contract extension?

Yes. Because a player eligible for a fifth-year option is also eligible for a contract extension, the team could opt to bypass the extension altogether or they can include it in the extension—as the Lions did with Penei Sewell during the 2024 offseason.

With Sewell, the Lions kept the final year of his rookie contract in place, applied the fifth-year option, and then added another four-year contract extension on top of that. In the end, the Lions managed to create a contract that extended Sewell through the 2029 season.

When can the Lions assign fifth-year options/sign contract extensions?

Immediately. While coach Dan Campbell working on rebuilding his coaching staff, general manager Brad Holmes and his staff can begin negotiations with players and their agents.

“Yeah, we’re working through all of that,” Brad Holmes said during his end-of-year presser. “Again, it’s not always in our control, we might have our plans and processes, but it takes two people to get something done. That’s not a negative comment, it’s just that you just don’t know what that player and their camp and all that kind of stuff are thinking. So, we haven’t gotten to those intense dialogues yet, so that’s going to be the only thing, but we have our philosophy, we have our process, but we’ll just see how it goes.”

What is a reasonable timeline for the option to be applied?

Because Sewell was this regime’s first drafted player, we only have his contract as a point of reference for a potential timeline of events. His contract was finalized on April 24, 2024, which was the first day of the NFL Draft, exactly one week before the fifth-year option deadline.

So while picking up a player’s option may seem like an easy decision on the surface, things could take time behind the scenes.