The Detroit Lions have extended both Amon-Ra St. Brown and Penei Sewell on Wednesday as the team likely hopes to make a Super Bowl jump this year. To be fair, neither player was going anywhere but these extensions prove that the Lions have not only hit home runs in their NFL Draft classes in recent years, but that the team is going to be aggressive and will continue to be aggressive.
GM Brad Holmes has done a sensational job at turning this franchise around, and he's had three strong drafts to fuel that turnaround. Well, his two best players from the 2021 Lions draft class both get four-year extensions:
Sources: #Lions All-Pro OT Penei Sewell has agreed to terms on a four-year, $112 million extension that makes him the new highest-paid offensive lineman in the NFL.
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) April 24, 2024
The deal, which includes $85 million guaranteed, was done by Justin Schulman and Joe Panos of @AthletesFirst. pic.twitter.com/1LUydpbzwd
Sources: The #Lions have a deal for one of the top young talents, agreeing on an extension for WR Amon-Ra St. Brown. He gets 4 years and more than $120M with $77M guaranteed.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 24, 2024
The deal done by @JobyBranion of @VanguardSG makes St. Brown the highest-paid WR in the NFL. pic.twitter.com/EIoBNU6jJw
Both players easily hit over $100 million in total value on the deal and both hit at least $75 million in guarantees. These extensions will cut right into their prime years and there'd be reason to believe that each player could re-up on an even richer extension a few years down the road. For the Lions, they had a great season in 2023, making it all the way to the NFC Championship Game, but managed to do so even with a bottom-10 defense.
The team clearly having needs to fill on defense did make some major moves on that side, signing DJ Reader, Marcus Davenport, and trading for CB Carlton Davis. You really can't find a clear weakness on the Lions roster at this point, and I believe we'll get to a point where this team needs to make a deep playoff run to avoid failure.
It's now reasonable to think that the next contract they hand out will be for their QB Jared Goff, who revitalized his career in Detroit, which is much due to Ben Johnson, their stud offensive coordinator who likely departs for a head coaching job next cycle.
Everything is going the Detroit Lions way this offseason.