On this week’s Detroit Lions Midweek Mailbag show, we discuss the NFL’s 2nd-round pick holdout and how it could affect Tate Ratledge.
Detroit Lions rookies reported for training camp on Wednesday, and for the first time in a long time, that date felt significant.
That’s because there’s a league-wide holdout happening for second-round picks. As of the publication of this article, only three second-round picks have signed their contracts, with the first two breaking precedent and having their contracts fully guaranteed. It’s clear everyone else was either pushing for fully guaranteed deals or hoping to see a higher percentage of their deal guaranteed.
With no movement—until late Wednesday night—there was a palpable fear that this holdout could drastically impact the Lions. Tate Ratledge has suddenly become a key Lions player following the retirement of Frank Ragnow, and if the plan remains to play Ratledge at center—somewhere he did not play in college—then Detroit is going to want him to log as many training camp and preseason snaps as he possibly can. A holdout would not be ideal.
So, what is the level of actual concern here? How long could a holdout continue, and at what point could that actually impact Ratledge’s ability to develop? Should the Lions just give him a fully guaranteed deal and be done with it?
That’s the main topic on this week’s Midweek Mailbag podcast, which heavily features training camp questions. Note that this podcast was recorded before the third second-round pick—49ers ’ Alfred Collins (43rd overall)—agreed to his rookie contract, which is not quite fully guaranteed. It’s worth noting that Adam Schefter believes this deal “is expected to trigger multiple second-round signings.”
Other topics on this week’s show:
- Which players will take the biggest leap in camp and during the season?
- Name an offensive and defensive player who will be the talk of training camp
- Which players will make the roster because of special teams? Which players with special teams talent are still on the bubble?
- What do you want to see the new coordinators do differently from their predecessors?
- Ranking the biggest concerns of the Lions’ 2025 season
You can catch this week’s show in the Spotify embed below this text, or via any of your favorite podcasting platforms.
You can also watch a video replay of the show on our YouTube and Twitch pages .