Aaron Jones is one of the most experienced players of a young Green Bay Packers offense. He's seen different roster-construction processes since he arrived in the NFL in 2017, and he knows something positively different is being built in Green Bay.

After a disappointing loss in the divisional round to the San Francisco 49ers, the running back made an evaluation of the Packers season, and his conclusion is how high the Packers offense's ceiling is for the next couple of years.

"I feel like what we're building here is special," Jones told Larry McCarren, on Total Packers. "You can feel it, you can see it. The chemistry, the bond, the standard that we've set. I feel like with the standard we've set, we know what our expectations are when we come back next year. Our standard is high. We have no reason not to reach that standard every day because we've shown that we can do it this year, and we've shown we can do it game after game after game, we can put it together. I feel like we're gonna be dangerous. We're gonna be special."

In 2023, the Packers had the youngest and least expensive offensive roster in football. Moreover, the highest-paid offensive player was left tackle David Bakhtiari, who played one game and missed the rest of the season with a knee issue.

Aaron Jones ended up being the most experienced and most expensive piece of the offense. And after a slow start with hamstring injuries, Jones finished the season playing the best football of his NFL career.

Over the last five games of the Packers' season (Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, and San Francisco 49ers), Jones had five 100+ rushing yard games, avering 116.8 rushing yards per game. He also totaled 11 receptions in these games.

The performance down the stretch basically secured Jones will stay in Green Bay beyond this season. He's under contract in 2024 for $12 million. Last offseason, he took a $5 million paycut to stay, but now Jones put himself in a better position to negotiate.

In spite of having a $12 million salary, Jones' cap hit will be $17.575 million, which is a tough pill for the Packers to swallow. Green Bay will probably find a way to adjust the number — the options are a simple restructure (there are three extra void years already in place), a full void restructure (adding a fourth void year to reduce his cap hit even more), or an extension, which would add real years to the contract, potentially keeping Jones for multiple seasons with the Packers.

RB depth

Aaron Jones is particularly important for the 2024 outlook of the offense because the running back room is a big question mark behind him. AJ Dillon is slated to be an unrestricted free agent, so it's not certain that he will be back. Patrick Taylor will be a restricted free agent, but it seems unlikely that Green Bay will apply any tender — so Taylor might end up as an unrestricted free agent as well.

The only players under the Packers' control behind Jones are Emanuel Wilson, who is an exclusive rights free agent and will most likely be back under a minimum tender, and Ellis Merriweather, who spent the final part of the season on the practice squad and signed a futures deal for 2024.

Aaron Jones was a fifth-round pick in 2017 — when the Packers general manager was still Ted Thompson. Jones is third in total rushing yards (5,940) in the Packers franchise history, only behind Ahman Green (8,322) and Jim Taylor (8,207).

Packers 2024 offseason guide: free agents, draft, big decisions

Young team is set for a new window