Jahmyr Gibbs signs $67.5M deal, passes Bijan as NFL's top-paid RB

The Lions locked up their best offensive weapon on August 6, agreeing to terms with Jahmyr Gibbs on a 3-year extension worth $67.5 million, with incentives that could push the total to $75.75 million. Adam Schefter broke the news, and the number that mattered most was the $51.5 million guaranteed — enough to make Gibbs the NFL's highest-paid running back the moment his agent confirmed the deal.

The timing here is everything. Bijan Robinson had just reset the running back market days earlier with a deal of his own in Atlanta, and per Jordan Schultz, that contract gave Detroit the exact blueprint it needed. Because Gibbs signed last, he leapfrogged Robinson by a hair — Schefter's own numbers put Gibbs at $22.5 million per year in new money, just ahead of Robinson's $22.25 million and Jonathan Taylor's $22 million. Three backs, three deals, all within the same week, all clearing the $20 million-a-year threshold that only one running back had ever hit before this offseason.

Naturally, the internet turned the $500,000 gap between Gibbs and Robinson into a running joke. Sleeper's account captured the pettiness of it all with a clip of Gibbs needling Robinson over landing the bigger number.

The extension also slots Gibbs alongside the rest of Detroit's homegrown core that general manager Brad Holmes has now paid — Aidan Hutchinson, Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Penei Sewell and others all got their own extensions before this one, and Gibbs' $67.5 million ranks right there with them as a marker of how the Lions have built through the draft and then refused to let it walk. Since going 12th overall in the 2023 draft, Gibbs has racked up 49 career touchdowns, the most in NFL history through a player's first three seasons, edging past Barry Sanders' old mark of 47. Last season alone he posted 1,839 yards from scrimmage and 18 total touchdowns, the kind of dual-threat production that made paying him a formality rather than a debate.

By August 7, the deal was official, with Gibbs putting pen to paper on the extension that runs through 2030.

None of these RB paydays will hold the top spot for long — that's how the running back market works now, with each new deal getting topped within days or weeks. But for a moment, Gibbs is the standard, and Detroit made sure the guy who's outscored everyone since he arrived isn't going anywhere.