Packers GM has the perfect perspective about building the roster around a high-priced Jordan Love
Everybody expected a big deal for Jordan Love. After all, it's just how the quarterback market works, and the most recently good one paid will probably be the highest-paid one. Now, the biggest questions are around if and how the Green Bay Packers can keep building a strong roster around him, even though his average […]
Everybody expected a big deal for Jordan Love. After all, it's just how the quarterback market works, and the most recently good one paid will probably be the highest-paid one. Now, the biggest questions are around if and how the Green Bay Packers can keep building a strong roster around him, even though his average per year represents more than 20% of the salary cap.
But Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst had the perfect perspective about it. And it's all around the alternatives to having a top quarterback.
"Whenever you have these big contracts, there's some challenges," Gutekunst said on Saturday. "But we've dealt with that pretty much over the past however many years. I'd rather be dealing with this challenge than some others, you know? So that will be part of it, and it'll be important that we continue to draft well and make good decisions along the way. But having that position stable and a guy who we know can perform at a high level, I'll take that every day."
So yes, paying a top quarterback brings challenges to the table. But the option is not to have a top quarterback whatsoever, and that probably is an even bigger hurdle for any roster-building process. Sure, everyone would love to have a great quarterback on a rookie deal, but this is simply not a sustainable approach over a 10, 15-year window.
Mitigating factors
Beyond the fact that the Packers are comfortable paying Jordan Love what they agreed to, there are important points to reinforce their plan. The first one is that Love has already proven he can elevate an inexpensive offense.
In 2023, the Packers had the least expensive offense in the NFL. The biggest cap hits were Aaron Rodgers' dead money and left tackle David Bakhtiari, who played one game. Aaron Jones also missed basically half of the season. The only player who was not on a rookie deal to play most of the season was left guard Elgton Jenkins. Still, Love led the unit to be fifth in offensive DVOA for the entire season, and the offense was the big reason why the team made the playoffs.
Second, the contract was structured in a way to allow a reasonable flexibility over at least the next four years. The cap cost only becomes significantly heavy in 2028, when Love will more likely than not get extended again.
Half a season
Critics of the deal would argue that Jordan Love only played eight good games. First, that's not true — he played eight truly elite games, but he wasn't bad in the other nine. Even if you include the entire season to have a more realistic outlook, he was still better than Jared Goff, who is four years older and got $53 million per year from the Detroit Lions.
Moreover, the Packers know Jordan Love much better than the external public. They have seen him in practice, how he operates, how he gets better for four years. Sure, games are a different animal, but when you add all that to what he did on the field in 2023, the decision gets easier.
"As we've moved along and he progressed and we realized he was going to be the next guy, and then seeing how he handled that this past year becoming the guy, handling that pressure, coming out the other side of it, just gave us a lot of confidence that this is the guy that’s going to lead us into the future," Gutekunst added. "I'm really excited about that."
Ideally, teams would want a first-round quarterback playing earlier to maximize the surplus value of a rookie deal, and that's fair. But how realistic would it be for the Packers to get a player they really wanted and ready to play, considering Green Bay was picking in the late 20s every year? The basic idea was that a player with Love's ceiling would only last so late because of his rawness.
"We knew he needed some time, he needed to develop and he needed to play," Gutekunst said. "When you really get to know these guys is when you get them in your building, get them in your process and you get to see how they work and how they endear themselves to their teammates, how important it is to them. Since he's been here, he's checked all those boxes."
The Packers were ready to pay Jordan Love. Now, they need to keep building around him — but no other team in the NFL has been more used to this type of challenge, and that's a good problem to have.
Packers make solid, but imperfect decision in Jordan Love’s contract extension structure
Jordan Love is now under a long-term contract with the Packers
