How the Packers are preparing themselves to give Jordan Love a big-time contract extension
The Green Bay Packers' biggest offseason priority is to give Jordan Love a fair, market extension. The quarterback market is a new reality, which has developed over the last decade, so a top deal at the position demands, more than ever, an established long-term plan. It's difficult to pay a quarterback more than $50 million […]
The Green Bay Packers' biggest offseason priority is to give Jordan Love a fair, market extension. The quarterback market is a new reality, which has developed over the last decade, so a top deal at the position demands, more than ever, an established long-term plan.
It's difficult to pay a quarterback more than $50 million per season and still have the ability to build a strong roster around him, but the Packers themselves are used to versions of that handling Aaron Rodgers for 15 years.
General manager Brian Gutekunst and executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball are ready to make it happen before training camp, and you can already see measures to adapt to that reality — a side effect of wasting most of Love's rookie deal with him on the bench, even though the strategy has ultimately paid off.
Cap integrity
From 2020 to 2022, in particular, the Packers went out of their usual modus operandi to manage a unique salary cap circumstance. With the cap going down because of the pandemic and the Packers in the middle of a last couple of runs with Rodgers, Green Bay started to add void years, restructure deals, and live with the reality of dead money eventually.
Last year, they were forced to keep doing that just to be able to operate. In 2024, though, the cap situation is finally clean again. The only real restructure the Packers made was with edge defender Rashan Gary, and they didn't even add an extra void year to spread more money around.
The Packers agreed to a real paycut with fellow edge Preston Smith, and decided to release running back Aaron Jones, offensive tackle David Bakhtiari, and linebacker De'Vondre Campbell.
They also let some importante contracts remain untouched — cornerback Jaire Alexander and defensive tackle Kenny Clark.
That sequence of decisions indicate the Packers are back to their conservative days in terms of cap management, and that gives them flexibility to pay Love without hesitation.
Flexibility to roll over
Right now, the Packers have $28.4 million in cap space. Even if they consider some space to in-season roster moves, they still have something around $15 million to spend. But if you look around, there aren't big moves left to be made.
Maybe during the season they sign a player or make a trade, but it's hard to imagine a big-time investment to take advantage of that space, the eighth highest in the league.
The presumed idea for the Packers is that they will have the ability to roll over a significant amount of cap. In the NFL, unused cap space rolls over to the following season, adding an important element for the future.
Jordan Love is counting $12.757 million against the cap this year. So even if he agrees to a big-time extension, the new contract won't occupy much more space than that — even if the Packers build it in a way to avoid a heavily backloaded structure, Love's hit will likely be something around $20 million.
Add $8 million to the math, and the Packers will still have $7 million in real cap space. To be more comfortable in 2025 and beyond, just rolling that amount over is a wisely cautious approach.
Clark's extension (or lack thereof)
The Packers want to keep Kenny Clark around. But as he's entering the last year of his second NFL contract, Green Bay won't finalize an extension until Love's deal is done. While Clark is an important piece of the defense, the final decision on if a new deal works for the team depends on how much money Love will make.
Gutekunst knows the two big upcoming extensions are connected to some degree.
"We'd love to keep Kenny around. We'll see how that goes here moving forward," Gutekunst told Cheesehead TV last week. "That's something, as we go forward here, we're going to look to see if we can do. It's all got to fit, and certainly, Jordan's contract, getting that done and kind of knowing how it's structured and how it sits over the next few years will be important. But Kenny is still playing at a very high level. One of our team leaders. We'd certainly like to have him around for a number of years."
The Packers haven't been able to finalize Jordan Love's extension just yet. But the plan is already being executed, and they are ready to go back to the reality of a team that pays a top quarterback.
Packers GM shares latest update on Jordan Love’s extension
Both sides want a new deal soon
