The Buffalo Bills signed rookie cornerback Maxwell Hairston on Friday morning, leaving just three first round picks from the 2025 NFL Draft who have yet to sign with their teams. The player who was selected second overall and is arguably the biggest star in his class is one of them, as Travis Hunter and the Jacksonville Jaguars have yet to come to an agreement.
Travis Hunter Among Three NFL First Round Picks Still Unsigned
The consensus thought about rookie contracts is that they are fixed. Per the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement, each draft pick has an assigned money value that makes it easy for teams to get players signed before training camps. But there are still specifics that players can negotiate, mostly having to do with g bonuses and the timing of them.
Unsigned #NFL 1st Rd Picks
#2 Travis Hunter (JAX, WR/CB)
#17 Shemar Stewart (CIN, DE)
#20 Jahdae Barron (DEN, CB)Also Unsigned? Every 2nd Rd pick not named Carson Schwesinger & Jayden Higgins, both of whom received fully guaranteed contracts, sending the round into disarray.
— Spotrac (@spotrac) June 13, 2025
Hunter hasn’t been a holdout, as he has been attending all of the offseason programs that the Jaguars have held thus far. And as NFL insider Ian Rapoport stated recently, there is no reason to believe that the Heisman Trophy winner will be unsigned by the time training camp rolls around in late July. Rapoport did say that the negotiations will “take some time.”
The Jaguars pulled off a surprise move on draft night in order to secure the rights to Travis Hunter. They mortgaged some of their future and assets in order to do so, as they sent two first round picks (‘25 & ‘26), a second rounder, as well as a fourth.
Bengals, Broncos Still Waiting For A Deal, As Well
Cincinnati’s unsigned first-round draft pick Shemar Stewart now has left mandatory minicamp, per source. Stewart had been attending team activities, but without a signed contract and with the Bengals asking for certain clauses, no longer. pic.twitter.com/qeo492Z6As
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 12, 2025
He isn’t alone as an unsigned rookie. One of the more interesting developing stories has centered around 17th overall pick Shemar Stewart, who is having a back and forth with the Cincinnati Bengals and their front office over contract issues. Stewart had initially showed up to the team’s mini-camp earlier this week, but left when it was clear that he’s demands weren’t being met when it came to the language in his rookie deal.
The third and final unsigned rookie is cornerback Jahdae Barron, who was drafted by the Denver Broncos. There doesn’t seem to be any panic from either side in that situation, as it is believed that, like Hunter, a deal will get done sooner rather than later.
