Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love will not practice with the team until he gets a new deal. That was the news that Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst broke during his pre-practice press conference on Monday, with Green Bay set to open its training camp for the 2024 season.
Per Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, Love has been participating in meetings with the team up to this point. Love was even seen on the practice field on Monday in sweats, but appears to be set on having a “hold-in” until his camp’s contract demands are met.
Following today’s practice, which you can read about here, ESPN’s Adam Schefter went on the Pat McAfee Show to discuss the ongoing drama.
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) July 22, 2024.@adamschefter says he could see Jordan Love becoming "the highest-paid quarterback in NFL history" by the end of the week
Schefter’s prediction? Love and the Packers get a deal done by the end of the week and it makes Love the “highest-paid quarterback in NFL history,” which also would make him the highest-paid player in the history of the sport.
So what does that mean? Well, depending on your definition of highest-paid, it could translate to a couple of things. Currently, the largest contract in NFL history is with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes is on a ten-year, $450 million contract. On a per-year basis, though, the highest average salary in league history is a tie between Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence at $55 million per season.
In truth, the reason the Packers and Love are likely not seeing eye to eye just yet is probably not over the big number that will be publicized when Love is signed. NFL contracts are usually redone, one way or another, after three seasons anyway. Instead, the argument is probably over guarantees and cash flow over the next three seasons.
For example, both Burrow and Lawrence are on $55 million deals, but Burrow will make $146.5 million from 2023-2025 while Lawrence will make $114 million from 2024-2026, the first three seasons since signing on the dotted line. That $30 million difference goes to show you how different contract structures can vary, even if the average salary is similar.
The Packers do not like to guarantee salary in players’ extensions beyond Year 1 of a new deal, but that’s going to be a harder and harder line to hold as quarterback salaries and guarantees explode. For example, Burrow signed for $146.5 million fully guaranteed and Lawrence signed for $142 million fully guaranteed, but they only received $40 million and $37.5 million of that in the form of a signing bonus, respectively.
So how do the Packers make up that nearly $100 million gulf between those quarterbacks’ guarantees and signing bonuses? There are only three options. A) You decide to dish out an even larger signing bonus, which will stretch that money over the cap for several seasons and eat up more of the Packers’ salary cap space in the short term. B) You guarantee that money in future seasons’ salaries, an option the Packers don’t want to seem to want to do beyond Year 1. Or C) The team has to get very creative with how they structure the contract, like they did the final Aaron Rodgers extension, where they pay out non-fully-guaranteed but highly-likely to be picked up “roster bonuses” in exchange for dropping fully-guaranteed demands.
A look at the ten-year Mahomes contract gives a great example of this. Mahomes signed for just $63 million guaranteed and a $10 million signing bonus in 2020, but his salaries and roster bonuses in his contract involve “rolling guarantees.” What this means is that those numbers automatically guarantee if he is on the roster by a certain date a year or two before.
Following Mahomes’ contract restructure, which was three years into his ten-year deal by the way, his roster bonuses a year ahead of time will fully guarantee on the third day of the new league year while his salary the same season will also fully guarantee on the same date. So in March of 2025, Mahomes’ $16.7 million salary in 2025 and his $10.4 million roster bonus in 2026 will go from non-guaranteed to guaranteed.
Knowing how the Packers’ preferences to avoid guaranteed salaries beyond Year 1 of new extensions work, you can go ahead and assume what’s holding up this deal is bickering over details of odd contract mechanics like that rather than where that big number is going to land.
