NFL teams have had to make decisions about their 2020 first-round draft picks in the days following the 2023 NFL Draft. Specifically, they had to decide whether or not to pick up the players’ fifth-year options, which, beginning with the 2018 class, become fully guaranteed once exercised, rather than at the start of the new league year of their fifth season.
That has undoubtedly played a role in our seeing a trend of more teams opting not to pick up those options, even if they still end up signing that player to a new contract, or even to an extension in the same year that they declined the option.