Aaron Rodgers’ arrangement with the Packers is a parachute
It might be his emergency exit ... or it might be GM Brian Gutekunst's.
Aaron Rodgers didn’t need to force Jordan Love into a starting role to get what he wanted from the Packers. Green Bay met him halfway in time for him to arrive at training camp on schedule.
Rodgers had reportedly planned on skipping camp before the player and team management negotiated their way to a settlement. Now he’s set to play out the 2021 season, and it may be his last in green and gold.
The agreement, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, includes these arrangements between player and team:
The 2023 year in Rodgers' contract -- the last one in his current deal -- would be voided, with no tags allowed in the future.
The Packers would agree to review Rodgers' situation at the end of this season.
Rodgers' contract would be adjusted with no loss of income to give the Packers more cap room now.
Mechanisms will be put in place to address Rodgers' issues with the team.
That was enough to convince Rodgers to put his differences with management aside, but good lord is that an ambiguous list. While we don’t know any real details behind the reported bullet points, the way they’re presented leaves a lot of heavy lifting to be done.
The 2023 year in Rodgers' contract -- the last one in his current deal -- would be voided, with no tags allowed in the future. Got it. This is an actual task with real clarity. A thing will happen. This is how the Packers will do it. Details will be updated on Spotrac shortly. With only $2.5m in dead money attached to that final year, it always seemed unlikely Rodgers would play out that 2023 season on this current deal -- either he’d be extended beforehand or, in what seemed like a mostly impossible second option months ago, traded or released.
The Packers would agree to review Rodgers' situation at the end of this season. This feels like it was going to happen regardless of 2021’s outcome after the star QB expressed his unhappiness with his front office. Does this mean his “situation” as a veteran who is playing some of the best football of his life but will be 38 years old in December? His “situation” with the front office and a potential shake-up if Rodgers’ concerns about a lack of skill players around him remain? His relationship with Jordan Love and the young passer’s development?
For this to be an actual concession, the discussion would have to revolve around trading or releasing Rodgers. Green Bay is saying it without saying it here, but this is the ejector seat if 2021’s differences are deemed irreconcilable.
Rodgers' contract would be adjusted with no loss of income to give the Packers more cap room now. I mean, great, but that’s money Green Bay badly needed at the start of free agency rather than the start of the preseason. Without a contract extension that would have spread Rodgers’ $37m+ 2021 cap hit around last spring, the Packers were forced to settle for low-key moves this offseason. Rather than jump into a depressed wideout market (where the Dolphins were able to snag rumored Packer target Will Fuller V for a relatively inexpensive one year, $10m deal), the club’s biggest free agent move was to … re-sign Marcedes Lewis? Retain Kevin King months after he played the worst game of his career with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line?
The Packers have approximately $5m in cap space right now, per Over the Cap. Rodgers’ restructure will create some more room while pushing the money he’s owed onto a 2022 cap where Green Bay is already an estimated $35 million over the limit. That might wind up being dead money for a player not even on the roster if the reigning MVP departs!
While I’m sure the team’s capologists will find a way to make this -- and the Davante Adams extension made possible by Rodgers’ return -- work, restructuring a massive contract over a shorter time frame than its original length is a pain in the ass. The most likely outcome is that an Adams deal would backfill any newfound cap space with the All-Pro wideout’s new guarantees … but the most likely outcome this offseason in Green Bay was that Rodgers would get a raise and an extension, so who the hell knows?
If not earmarked for Adams, why make that effort a month before the season starts with few game-changing veterans still looking for homes? How much of it is earmarked for Randall Cobb, who is in his 11th season as a pro and had only 38 catches last season (but a solid 9.2 yards per target):
Is Rodgers really bullish in finding veterans who wind up released as cap casualties as the season approaches? Is he putting faith in the front office to use that space for a deal before the trade deadline? Are the Packers about to throw cash at Cobb and Golden Tate in hopes of reliving the mid-2010s? Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to put on some Gangnam Style and watch Guardians of the Galaxy instead?
Mechanisms will be put in place to address Rodgers' issues with the team. This is a nothing statement on its own and a summary of the last three points. Rodgers’ main target in this spat is general manager Brian Gutekunst, who traded up in the 2020 Draft to select Love 26th overall without first consulting the quarterback behind whom he’d be stashed. Is this mechanism an intermediary between GM and player to facilitate communication? Does it mean Rodgers gets more control over free agent and draft additions? Is it a warning to Gutekunst that any failures this season could lead to his dismissal, far removed enough from Rodgers’ vote of no confidence that it doesn’t seem like a star player is calling the shots in one of the league’s most traditional franchises?
(Honestly, that last one feels like a capital-t Thing. Anything less than a Super Bowl could be all it takes to cut Gutekunst loose and possibly, maybe, kinda-sorta keep Rodgers happy)
Based on reports, we have no idea. We do know it was enough to get Rodgers to report to camp, but seeing as his only mechanism was a holdout that would have cost him $50k every day, he may have settled for some gumballs and Bennigan’s coupons in order to get back to work.
Or he may have lined up the autonomy to bring back his entire 2016 offense. Those guys could still probably win the NFC North, anyway. -- CD