Will dam break with NFL’s 30 second-round holdouts? No guarantee

Only two of 32 second-round picks in the 2025 draft are under contract with NFL training camp set to begin when Los Angeles Chargers veterans report Thursday.

Wide receiver Tre Harris, the second-round pick of the Chargers, was a no-show when rookies reported to training camp earlier this week.

A total of 30 players selected between picks 33 and 64 are unlikely to report without contracts in a standoff centered around one team’s decision — the Houston Texans — to hand out the first ever fully guaranteed contract to a second-round pick.

Iowa State wide receiver Jayden Higgins signed the four-year, $11.7 million contract in May and would receive every penny of that deal even if he’s released or injured.

Team president Nick Caserio said the Texans moved up to get Higgins in part because they were surprised he wasn’t selected in the first round as their team draft board projected.

“Watch him play. Here is a guy that basically made himself into an NFL football player,” Caserio said of Higgins, who began his career at Eastern Kentucky. “I mean, go watch him play. He went down to the Senior Bowl and he had a good week. Why did we pick him? Because he’s a good player, he’s a great kid, he’s got the right mindset.”

The precedent of the guaranteed checks pushed the Cleveland Browns to do the same with the only player picked in the second round before the Texans drafted Higgins 34th overall. Cleveland, which began the trend of fully guaranteed deals for quarterbacks when they acquired Deshaun Watson from Houston (and handed him $230 million over five years), guaranteed the four-year contract with UCLA linebacker Carson Schwesinger. He’ll pocket $11.8 million over the next four years.

Portions of pay to NFL second-round picks have been guaranteed since the rookie pay pool and slotting wage scale went into effect in 2011. In last year’s rookie class, four-year deals were anywhere from 50 percent to 95 percent guaranteed.

The 35th overall pick in the 2025 draft, Seahawks safety Nick Emmanwori (South Carolina), and No. 36, Browns running back Quinshon Judkins (Ohio State), are extremely unlikely to fold in negotiations without elevated guarantees. From the 2024 draft class, the first pick in the second round — Bills wide receiver Keon Coleman — signed a contract that is all but fully guaranteed (at just under 96 percent) for four years.

But despite Judkins’ recent arrest, Cleveland’s history of giving up leverage in these situations won’t be dismissed.

If there is a rookie picked in the second round with the most to lose on the field, it could be Saints quarterback Tyler Shough (Louisville). The 40th pick overall, Shough is competing to start in New Orleans following the release of Derek Carr. The breaking point could come down to Shough’s view of the financial risk up front and the fallout involved with not reporting to training camp on time.

The 40th overall pick in the 2024 draft, Eagles cornerback Cooper DeJean, had $7,469,987 of his $9.2 million contract guaranteed by Philadelphia when he signed in May before rookie minicamp last year.

–Field Level Media