The Detroit Lions hit a home run in the 2022 NFL draft, finding a star in edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson with the No. 2 overall pick.
Now, the team is going to work on keeping Hutchinson in Detroit for the long term.
Lions president Rod Wood spoke about Hutchinson’s future this week, avoiding any direct update on a contract extension but stressing that the team was going to lock him down for the long term.
Lions ‘Assured’ of Long-Term Deal for Aidan Hutchinson
Speaking to reporter Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Wood said “no comment” when asked about Hutchinson’s future but emphasized his confidence that a long-term deal would get done.
“He will be here the long haul, I can assure you of that,” Wood said.
The Lions president did not give an exact time frame on when an extension could come, but noted that the team had locked down other key players in due time and would be doing the same with Hutchinson.
“We’ll start working on that,” Wood said. “And we have a track record of extending our own players, which we’ve done that recently with Sewell and St. Brown and [defensive tackle] Alim McNeill, and I think that Hutch is likely to be coming up soon.”
Hutchinson is coming off an injury-shortened season, going down in October with a fractured leg and leaving the team’s pass rush in disarray. Hutchinson managed 7.5 sacks, which ended up leading the team despite his only appearing in five games before suffering the season-ending injury.
Lions Confident in Aidan Hutchinson’s Return
Lions head coach Dan Campbell said last season that Hutchinson had a chance to return to the field if the team advanced to the Super Bowl, but instead the season was cut short with an upset loss to the Washington Commanders in the divisional round.
Hutchinson revealed earlier in April that he had reached the end of his rehab process and was ready to get back onto the field for offseason workouts.
“I’m there. I’d say I’m good,” Hutchinson said in an appearance on Thursday at the Masters. “I’ve got my last evaluation tests when I get back, I leave today and I go back tomorrow to the rehab. I’m gonna finish those evals and once I knock them out of the park, I’ll be on my way and done with rehab. It was a long process, I’ll tell you that.”
Hutchinson added that the recovery process was long and arduous, but he was happy to have reached the end of it.
“It felt pretty long,” Hutchinson said. “The early stages were pretty rough but just being out of that now, like we were talking about earlier, you just have this appreciation for your body, you have appreciation for no pain and running. I’m happy to be done with that. People were loving that sprinting video, too. I didn’t think people would love it as much as they did. But I got a lot of text messages, a lot of people DMing me. It was cool, the support has been amazing.”
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