After three years of making plays, Kerby Joseph is getting paid.
The Lions have agreed to a four-year, $86 million extension with Joseph, per NFL Network, that will make him the highest-paid safety in the NFL. At $21.5 million per year, Joseph's new deal just surpasses Bucs star Antoine Winfield who makes $21.025 million per year.
It's a well-deserved payday for Joseph, a third-round pick in 2022 who led the NFL with nine interceptions last season and was named a first-team All-Pro. He was the highest-graded safety in the league, per Pro Football Focus, and the fifth highest-graded defensive player overall.
Joseph, 24, also leads the league with 17 interceptions since the start of his career.
Joseph's extension, which will kick in for the 2026 season, comes one day before the draft, just like the extensions the Lions awarded Penei Sewell and Amon-Ra St. Brown last year. They later extended Alim McNeill, securing the three pillars of their 2021 draft class. Aidan Hutchinson is next in line in the 2022 class.
"He will be here for the long haul, I can assure you that," Lions president Rod Wood said this week.
Wood added that "the challenge" for the Lions is that "we've built this great foundation of players and we've benefited with many of them being on rookie contracts, and now they're all becoming second-contract players, which you have to plan for."
"We've been doing that, really, for the last three years, so we're ready to keep all these guys here for the long haul and keep this foundation in place," said Wood.
