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The Detroit Lions may need to act quickly if they want to secure Aidan Hutchinson without breaking the bank.

There’s no denying that the Detroit Lions have a star on their hands in Michigan’s Aidan Hutchinson. The defensive end is the envy of the league, with only guys like Maxx Crosby and Myles Garrett even coming close to his power.

The Lions are usually good about signing key players early when it comes to their extensions, and that may need to happen with Hutchinson. Doing so often helps stay ahead of the ever-growing pay rate these star players get in the league.

But, either way you slice it, if and when the Lions re-sign Hutchinson, he’s going to get a major payday.

Aidan Hutchinson By the Numbers

So, what would a Hutchinson contract look like? As Christian Booher of Sports Illustrated notes in a March 26 feature, “The Lions may be forced to pay up big for Hutchinson due to the value placed on the defensive end position. Prior to suffering a season-ending leg injury, he was on pace to break the NFL’s single-season sack record, and played at a Defensive Player of the Year level.”

The aforementioned Crosby and Garrett have already snagged record-breaking deals with their teams, so the cost of re-signing Hutchinson has already gone up. Specifically, Garrett’s contract re-set the market with an AAV of a massive $40 million per year.

In a separate article for Sports Illustrated, Albert Breer states that there are definite benefits to working out Hutch’s extension now instead of waiting. He notes that counting the last year of his rookie deal and the fifth-year option that Detroit will probably pick up, Hutchinson is still left with two seasons, which could be made into an extension. So, the Lions could turn a four-year deal into a six-year deal and result in a lower AAV, as Breer points out.

“That said, there’s a trick to all of this if you get Hutchinson done now. He has $25.45 million due to him over the next two years—which gets folded into the new contract,” Breer explained in the March 26 feature. “So let’s say he, for example, does a four-year, $160 million extension with the Detroit Lions, which would take him through the 2030 season.”

Breer adds, “In that circumstance, the real money on the deal would be $185.45 million over six years, or an average of $30.9 million per year.” That’s a lot of dough.

Pretty Much Nobody Thinks the Lions Should Sit on Hutchinson

In the end, many NFL experts and analysts agree that the Lions would be wise to re-signed Hutchinson as soon as possible. Only a fool would create a situation where either Hutchinson could walk or the Lions get slapped with a deal that’s millions more than it needed to be.

“Detroit has also demonstrated a unique contract structure with recent deals and extensions, going low on base salary early in the deal and spreading the cap hit out with void years,” Booher notes in his feature, adding that “coming to an agreement with Hutchinson this offseason would allow them to maximize the time they’d get with the homegrown, former No. 2 overall pick.”

Booher adds, “As a result, the Lions could benefit greatly from coming to terms with Hutchinson before the end of the offseason.”