A Contract Stalemate That Could Make History
Jahmyr Gibbs missed practice Wednesday and Thursday. That’s all it took for the contract conversation to go from background noise to unavoidable. The Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons are staring at the same problem from opposite sides of the league: they both have generational running backs on rookie deals, and neither team wants to set the market first.
Because whoever signs their guy first loses on the player side. The other back can point at that number and say give me more.
But whoever signs first wins on the team side because you’ve locked your cornerstone up before the price gets worse.
So what if Gibbs and Robinson just cut through the BS entirely? What if they got together and told their teams: we both want the same deal, same total value, same average per year, same guaranteed money. Highest-paid running back in NFL history, both of us, at the exact same time.
That has never happened before. Not once. But it could solve the strangest contract standoff the league has seen in years.
Where The Market Sits Right Now
The highest total value for a running back contract right now belongs to De’Von Achane with the Miami Dolphins at $64 million. Saquon Barkley leads in average annual value at $20.6 million with the Philadelphia Eagles. And the most total guaranteed money among all running backs belongs to rookie Jeremiyah Love with the Arizona Cardinals.
Yeah, a rookie. That tells you where this position is heading.
If Gibbs and Robinson want to blow past all of that, both teams have to come to the table with something massive that resets the entire market.
The Proposed Deal: Four Years, $88 Million
Here’s what it could look like. Both players sign identical four-year deals worth $88 million, with $22 million in average annual value and $55 million guaranteed.
That would put both of them into the stratosphere as the highest-paid running backs in NFL history. And keep in mind, they’re younger than all the other guys at the top of the market. Locking them up for a long time makes sense.
Yes, that’s a hell of a lot of money. But here’s the thing: both teams can structure this completely differently based on how they operate.
How The Lions Would Structure It
What we know about how Detroit handles its contracts is that base salary and cap hit stay low upfront while dead money goes high, paying out guaranteed money early. Brad Holmes loves flexibility. He loves void years. He loves holding years to spread money around and restructure when the time is right.
For Gibbs, the 2026 cap hit would sit at roughly $5.7 million, still part of his existing rookie deal. In 2027, because the Lions picked up his fifth-year option, the cap hit rises to $15 million. But the extension actually kicks in during 2028, where the cap hit drops back down to just $5 million with $55 million in dead money.
Year two of the extension brings a $13 million cap hit. Still manageable. By 2030, you’re looking at a $25 million cap hit, and that’s where the Lions can say they want to restructure. When they do that, they’re essentially extending him again. He’d be just 27 years old at that point, so it’s not like they’re extending an older player.
The void years in the deal give Detroit holding years to spread money around, restructure, and keep things flexible. This next extension for Gibbs should ideally lock him up for the rest of his NFL career. He’d be in Detroit for the long haul unless they decide to trade him or something unexpected happens.
And yes, I know what you’re thinking. We’ve been hurt before. But this front office is not the Matt Millen front office. Brad Holmes knows what he’s doing.
Why Atlanta Has It Easier
The Falcons, at least under their previous GM, didn’t use void years the way Detroit does. So their cap hits would be bigger right away: $12 million, then $19 million, then up to $27 million and $30 million.
But Atlanta is in a much better cap space situation than the Lions. The Falcons currently have the fifth-most cap space in the league, so they can afford to maneuver. They also don’t have a quarterback they’re going to be paying a ton of money to soon. They have Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix Jr., and maybe Penix can show he’s the guy.
Atlanta just doesn’t have all the guys to pay like the Lions do. Detroit has to get more creative, which is where the void years and restructures come into play.
You could also make the case that new Falcons GM Ian Cunningham brings over some of those Howie Roseman tendencies from Philadelphia. The Eagles use more void years than any team in the league, so the Falcons could start operating similarly with Cunningham in town.
The Bigger Picture
No two teams have done this before, paying two players at the same position the exact same amount of money. To pull it off, you have to go way over the current market, which is how you jump from $64 million to $88 million.
It’s going to make some fans gasp. But this is just the way the league is heading.
Every single year you hear about a new highest-paid player at a given position. Jeremiyah Love is already getting $53 million guaranteed as a rookie. If he turns out to be the player Arizona expects, we could be looking at a $100 million running back down the line. People would look back at Gibbs and Robinson as the guys who started that trend.
Let’s see if either team actually pulls the trigger on something like this.
Do you trust Brad Holmes to get this done without hamstringing the cap, or are we about to watch the Falcons swoop in and set the market first? Drop your take below.
