Ty Simpson isn’t the only early 2026 draft pick who still hasn’t signed their first contract.
In fact, four quarterbacks and seven selections total still haven’t put pen to paper.
The first four quarterbacks drafted this year, including Fernando Mendoza (first overall), Simpson (13th), Carson Beck (65th) and Drew Allar (76th) are all without a deal so far, although it’s still far too early to be genuinely concerned about this.
Since the rookie wage scale was implemented in 2011, every draft pick has
a specific value each year. In other words, before the draft even starts, the total value of every pick’s contract is already set. Unlike the pre-2011 lockout world, when draft picks could negotiate salaries and early picks would eat up massive amounts of cap space, every team already knows what their picks will make, at least in terms of general value. Matthew Stafford, for example, got a six-year contract with a total value of $72 million when he was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 2009, with $41.7 million guaranteed. The salary cap was also just $123 million in 2009.
For an example even closer to home, Sam Bradford’s holdout and subsequent massive contract he signed following the 2010 draft was the final nail in the coffin for the old way of doing things.
Needless to say, that’s not what’s happening with Ty Simpson and his fellow top-three round quarterbacks this year. For comparison’s sake, Mendoza’s eventual contract will be fully guaranteed, but will only be worth $57.3 million total value over four years. Simpson’s total value will be right around $25.4 million.
In recent years, the hang-ups for draft pick deals have generally involved things like offset language or other relatively minute details. Rookies don’t hold out often anymore, even though there was an example of it last year when Shemar Stewart of the Cincinnati Bengals held out intro training camp.
While we don’t have exact details yet, this is likely just the newest relatively minor mutation of the rookie wage scale era. As far as the first-round picks go, Simpson and Mendoza, there hasn’t been much change in how those contracts are done in recent years. The top-overall selection’s contract has been fully guaranteed since the scale was implemented, when Cam Newton signed for $22 million. Both of those aforementioned passers will get fully guaranteed deals this year, too. But the other fine-print details are the likely sticking points, and will likely set a precedent for next year’s class and those beyond it as well.
It’s even easier to guess what’s going on with Beck and Allar, the third and fourth quarterbacks taken in this year’s draft. If you recall last year, almost every second-round pick held out well into July (right around this time last year, right before training camp, fittingly). That was entirely about guaranteed money and how much they were going to get after past second rounders only received partial guarantees on their rookie deals.
Now, this year’s 64th-overall pick (Bud Clark for the Seattle Seahawks) has a rookie contract valued at $7.9 million with $5.4 million guaranteed, or, in other words, 68% of the deal is guaranteed. Last year, the 65th pick in the draft, Darius Alexander of the New York Giants, had just under $1.6 million of his $6.7 million overall contract guaranteed, or just below 24%.
That’s a sizable disparity. Needless to say, you can understand why a quarterback drafted in that position wants a bigger guarantee. And next year, non-quarterbacks taken in the third round will want a guarantee commensurate with those of their classmates, and the process will continue down the line later and later into the draft.
Deadlines spur action, and with training camp looming there’s a soft deadline on the horizon to work these contracts out. At this point it would be shocking if these quarterbacks don’t get on the field soon. The next time someone asks you why these deals aren’t done and should they be worried about it, you can let them know that it’s essentially business as usual on the business side of the league.
