On Thursday, the Green Bay Packers reached agreements with their final two unsigned draft picks, second-round cornerback Josh Jackson and third-round linebacker Oren Burks. This represents the new norm, with every member of the draft class under contract months ahead of training camp. But in the past, the process tended to take much longer.
Before the 2011 NFL collective bargaining agreement that effectively created a slotting system for draft picks, holdouts for first-rounders occurred every year. Now, such holdouts have become scarce, with cases like 2016’s Joey Bosa, who didn’t sign his contract until after the start of the regular season, growing extremely rare.