Jack Bech is the Las Vegas Raiders‘ only unsigned pick from the 2025 NFL Draft. But he is not alone among his peers.
Bech is one of 30 picks from the second round that are unsigned because they are all holding out for guaranteed contracts after two second-round selections were given guaranteed deals.
According to Spotrac, only 56 of the 257 picks from the 2025 NFL Draft have not signed a new contract, a whopping 53.5 percent were chosen in the second round. Only the top-two second-round selections, the No. 33 pick Carson Schwesinger of the Cleveland Browns and No. 34 Jayden Higgins of the Houston Texans, have signed their rookie contracts.
Why Is Jack Bech Holding Out?
Bech, the TCU wide receiver who the Raiders selected with the 58th pick of the draft, is aligned with his fellow second-round picks while they seek fully guaranteed contracts.
Higgins, the 6-4 wideout from Iowa State, was the first to sign when he became the first second-round selection to ink a fully guaranteed contract. His four-year, $11.7 million deal includes a $5.15 million signing bonus, which is appropriate for his draft slot but threw off the market for second-round picks.
“They can blame that on the Texans,” longtime Houston-based NFL writer John McClain said on the “Unnecessary Roughness” show on Raider Nation Radio. “They gave a fully guaranteed contract to their first pick in the second round [Higgins]. Then the Browns did it [with] Carson Schwesinger. … No other second round picks got them.”
All 32 first-round picks are fully guaranteed. But with Higgins and Schwesinger, the UCLA linebacker, each receiving a guaranteed contract — the Browns gave Schwesinger a deal worth $11.8 million over four years — the rest of the second rounders are lobbying for guaranteed deals.
“All the agents were like, ‘Hey, they did it. We want to do it,” McClain said. “They did it for one, you can do it for all, so everybody that’s struggling to get their second-round pick signed should blame Nick Caserio, the Texans general manager.”
When Will Jack Bech Sign With The Raiders?
No one could blame Bech and his peers for holding out for guaranteed contracts — and current college players should be rooting for as many holdouts to collect a fully guaranteed deal.
But they can’t hold out forever.
“Of course, they’re going to sign,” McClain said.
As the 28th pick of the second round, Bech may be one of the first second rounders to give in and sign a non-guaranteed contract. Bech is likely to be eligible for a four-year contract worth about $7 million — since the second pick of the third round, Ashton Gillotte signed a deal worth $6.7 million with the Kansas City Chiefs.
So even though the players will sign by the start of training camp next month — and some may even ink deals ahead of the upcoming mandatory minicamps — no one wants to be the first second-round pick to sign and ruin the potential for a fully guaranteed deal for everyone else.
“It’s unprecedented for this many second-round picks to still have not signed,” McClain said, “and you can’t blame them for asking.”
