Breaking down the Derrick Barnes’ 3-year extension with the Detroit Lions and giving it an overall grade.

On Friday, the Detroit Lions and Derrick Barnes reportedly agreed to a three-year contract extension worth $25.5 million. It’s the first major re-signing the Lions have made this offseason, and also one of the most interesting. We knew the Lions quite fond of Barnes and his play, but given he’s coming off a serious, season-ending injury, it was hard to project his future.

Let’s break down the move and give it an overall grade.

What the Lions are getting in Barnes

For one, their starting SAM linebacker, a critical role in their defense. To play SAM linebacker, you need to be able to do just about everything: pass rush, set the edge in the run game, and drop into coverage. Barnes has experience doing all of those things as a defensive end in college who only spent his final year at Purdue as an off-ball linebacker.

In his four years in Detroit, Barnes spent most of his time playing off-ball. His game grew suddenly in Year 3, when he started the season at the MIKE linebacker position over first-round rookie Jack Campbell. That year, now Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard warned the Lions media that Barnes was coming. He proceeded to make 13 starts, produce 81 tackles, five tackles for loss, 1.0 sakc, and a forced fumble.

He was looking to take his game to another level at the SAM linebacker position in 2024, and while he got off to a strong start, he season was abruptly ended in Week 3 after tearing his MCL and PCL on a low block.

He’ll likely be fully ready for 2025, and it’s probably a good assumption he’ll be back in the SAM linebacker role with the ability to back up every other linebacker position, if needed.

Given that the SAM linebacker position is highly valuable in Detroit, and it requires such a unique set of skills, Barnes’ retention is a big deal toward getting the defense back that was one of the best in the NFL early in the season.

Filling a need grade: A

Did the Lions get good value?

This is probably where some may have contention with this move from the Lions. The Lions are signing Barnes to a three-year, $25.5 million extension, including $16 million guaranteed. While we don’t know the full breakdown of the deal yet, a lot of times you can just knock off the final year and count the guaranteed money. So expect this to play out similar to a two-year, $16 million deal.

In our free agency preview, we predicted a deal that wouldn’t top $5 million a year, so this does look like an overpay by those standards. That’s especially true of a player coming off a major injury. Who knows what we’re going to see out of Barnes in 2025?

Comparatively speaking, Barnes’ $8.5 million per year average ranks him t-15th in the NFL (with Lavonte David). His contract is very similar to Dolphins linebacker Jordyn Brooks, who received a three-year, $26.25 million ($9.5 million guaranteed) free agency deal last offseason. Brooks has far more production than Barnes. Here’s what each players’ career looked like prior to signing their new contract:

Jordyn Brooks: 55 starts—513 tackles, 23 tackles for loss, 16 passes defended, 1 INT, 2 FFs
Derrick Barnes: 26 starts—205 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, 4 passes defended, 1 FF

Both players excel at stopping the run, with Brooks producing a 9.9% run stop rate per PFF last year (t-12th) while Barnes was at 9.4% in 2023 (16th).

That said, you aren’t paying for past performance, you’re paying for future production. Barnes’ trajectory is undoubtedly going in the right direction. Still, this does seem like a bit of an overpay, even with the linebacker market clearly growing after a few down years.

Value grade: C-

Overall thoughts

Barnes is a great fit at a tough position, and he’s everything the Lions want in a football player and locker room presence. I’m a little surprised how high they were willing to go with Barnes, considering we know they’re going to be a little careful with their cap space given the amount of contract extensions that will likely be signed over the next couple of years.

Still, Barnes features to be an important part of Detroit’s defense in 2025, and locking up a key, young player who is a model of everything the team is about can’t be viewed as bad move, even if it’s a slight overpay