All throughout the offseason, it was reported that the Packers and Aaron Rodgers were going to agree on a new deal that would make the franchise quarterback the highest paid player in the NFL. Well, training camp has opened, the players are practicing and Rodgers still hasn’t signed on the dotted line. While negotiations appear to be cordial, the Packers cannot afford to allow talks to drag on indefinitely. The sooner the Pack and Rodgers come to an agreement, the better it will be for both parties.
After last season, there is no doubt how badly the Packers need a healthy Rodgers. With A-Rod in the lineup, the Pack got off to a 4-1 start and definitely looked like a playoff team. However, the drop off in performance between Rodgers and backup Brett Hundley was severe and the Pack went only 3-8 the rest of the way to miss the playoffs for the first time in nearly a decade.
On paper, a new deal seems logical. The Packers clearly want to keep their best player happy and under contract while Rodgers wants to be paid commensurate with his status as one of the best (if not the best) players in the game today.
Throughout the offseason, lesser quarterbacks signed contracts that surpassed Rodgers in average salary per year. Kirk Cousins signed a deal that averaged $28 million per season. the unproven Jimmy Garopollo signed for an average of $27.5 million per year. Derek Carr and Joe Flacco are also earning more annually than Rodgers and none of these players come close to matching the skill and value of the Packers starting QB.
As each of these new deals were signed, it seemed that they would set the stage for Rodgers and the Packers to reach a contract that would surpass them all. The last deal that would seem to have any effect on negotiations was Matt Ryan’s new agreement with the Atlanta Falcons which was signed at the beginning of May. Here we are almost three months later and Rodgers and the Packers are still negotiating.
The biggest issue holding things up is that Rodgers still has two years left on his current deal. He signed a five-year contract with the Packers that runs through the end of the 2019 season. After that, the team has the right to place the franchise tag on Rodgers and sign him at fairly reasonable rates for the next two seasons. That means the Pack can already lock up Rodgers through the age of 39. Rodgers recently indicated he wants to play until he is 40.
As of right now, everything seems to be cordial. Negotiations are ongoing and both sides are saying the right thing at least when addressing the media. For his part, Rodgers says he is mainly focusing on what he needs to do on the field.
“My contract is all about me and my tenure here,” Rodgers told Forbes shortly after training camp opened. “But as we know, this league is about comparison to other contracts, and that’s often now how negotiations go and have gone.”
“When I signed my last deal, there was an amount of time before it got passed up, but then it did, and that’s the next bar for those contracts. It’s just the way it goes. It’s important to me, but my focus is on this team and training camp. I’d love to have some sort of agreement that’s going to extend me here, but I understand it’s a business.”
Another obstacle may be that Rodgers and his agent want to get creative and sign a deal that is structured differently than traditional NFL contracts. The Packers and GM Brian Gutekunst may not be willing to set a precedent that will change the way the teams and players do business.
The cost of player contracts only goes up over time and the longer the Pack waits to reach an agreement with Rodgers, the more money they’ll have to give him to make him the NFL’s highest-paid player.
The Packers have more leverage at this point, but they cannot allow Rodgers to be unhappy. If the team’s best player and leader has issues has problems with management that are allowed to fester, it can have a negative impact on the entire team.
Both the Packers and Rodgers remember only too well how messy Brett Favre’s exit (or was it exits?) from Green Bay was in 2008 and nobody wants a repeat of that scenario. The Packers would be wise to sign an extension with Rodgers before the start of the 2018 regular season or the situation could become a distraction for both Rodgers and the team.
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