The Packers have to pay Jordan Love, but is there a number that is just too much?
Jordan Love looks poised to reset the quarterback market, but is there a number at which "you just pay the QB" fails to pass muster for the Green Bay Packers?
Good morning!
Training camp is a month away and we are now entering one of the quietest parts of the offseason which means you’ll be bombarded with takes from all sides. Someone has to create the content, and we are no exception. But occasionally, out of the wild takes something interesting can emerge.
You’ll never believe who this one is from either, but an intriguing question came up about the league’s burgeoning quarterback market. Conventional wisdom says just pay them. But that can’t be true at literally any number or the numbers would already have gone even higher. Is there a point where it stops making sense for teams like the Green Bay Packers?
We explore that question in today’s free Monday newsletter.
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Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio recently suggested Jordan Love could become the first $60 million man in the NFL. Would that make sense for the Packers?
Peter Bukowski: Get ready to bust out your “worst person makes a good point,” memes given Florio’s popularity among Packers fans, but Florio proposes something interesting when it comes to Love: a five-year $300 million extension that, in practicality is a six-year contract because they wouldn’t have to touch this season with Love set to make $10.5 million in base salary and cost just $12.7 million on the cap.
This looks like a $60 million deal because it is in new money, but by not touching this season, it’s a six-year deal averaging more like $50 million a year. That’s still an eye-popping figure for quarterback going into his rising sophomore season as a starter, but the bar to clear here isn’t that high.
As I wrote earlier this spring, the rising cap will only perpetuate this vertiginous rise in quarterback salaries. The position has never been more valuable on the field or to franchise values from a marketing and PR standpoint.
Jared Goff getting $53 million a year on this salary cap is the same as a future quarterback getting almost $69 million on the projected 2027 salary cap. By the time ‘27 roles around, even $60 million annually would likely land Love near the back half of the top 10 of quarterback prices.
Dak Prescott will be paid before then. Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes each need a raise. C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson will be extension eligible by then. The 49ers will pay Brock Purdy (kicking and screaming). And if the Packers beat the Dolphins to the table, Miami may have to beat the Love number for Tua Tagovailoa.
These numbers give us sticker shock because of the rising cap, but at the moment the percentage of the cap quarterbacks eat up doesn’t prohibit teams from building out the rest of the team. Unless and until a quarterback demands a stable percentage of the cap, a version of the NBA model, where the player gets say 21% of the cap every year of the deal, quarterback extensions for players who qualify as middling starters or better, will continue to make this kind of money.
The question starts to get interesting if the percentage rises faster than the cap can maintain. Getting into deals worth 30% of the cap or more could start to become problematic and that’s where we appear to be headed sooner than later. NFL Network reported the owners are considering a quarterback salary cap in part to fight off this problem. Teams want to pay their quarterbacks, they just want to be able to field a team around them too.
Right now, they can, but that could change sooner than later and teams like the Dolphins with Tua and the 49ers with Purdy already face thorny decisions about their quarterback’s value relative to more cost-effective options. There is a number at which it no longer makes sense to pay even quality starters. We haven’t quite hit that saturation point, but missing on who teams think those guys are is still the fastest way to torpedo half a decade.
Elgton Jenkins was non-commital on X (formerly known as Twitter) about playing left guard. Is this a thing or was he trolling?
PB: Giving a Pro Bowl-caliber guard snaps at center does not bode well for the future of Josh Myers. It also speaks to the faith the team has in Jenkins who played center as a rookie with Corey Linsley got hurt and did so at a high level. We can’t miss what it potentially says about the faith the team has in Jordan Morgan, belief on display in the Packers coaches entrusting him to learn four positions already in the offseason program, something Jason wrote about last week.
Offseason reports from ESPN pegged Zach Tom as the center of the future, though Packers News later refuted that notion. Still, add all of this up and the smoke around a Myers replacement grows like the phoenix. If the Packers want to move someone, Jenkins makes the most sense because he already has center experience, is a proven top-level interior offensive lineman, and is under contract.
Tom may be hesitant to move inside because of the potential cost difference of a tackle vs. a center. Even if he’s not, Tom’s value as a quality tackle trumps whatever replacement value he gets over Myers (unless he’s truly elite there). Putting Morgan next to Jenkins bends the learning curve for the rookie with an experienced running mate by his side.
Left guard sets up as the easiest potential transition inside for Morgan as well, given his experience as a left tackle in college — the most difficult part of a position change comes if there’s a side change along with it because all the engrained muscle memory has to be flipped to the opposite side of the body.
And that’s the key. This isn’t about Jenkins, who we can likely comfortably assume is a material upgrade over Myers. The question is what can they get out of Morgan? If he proves himself in the preseason process, that is what incites this move, not Jenkins out-practicing Myers.