The Packers have to start planning now for the post-mega QB contract future with Jordan Love

With Jordan Love set to top $50 million annually, the way Green Bay builds its roster will have to change and they must learn from the failures of the late Rodgers era.

Without COVID, maybe it would have been fine. It’s a sentence that could describe an endless list of events we wish had gone better. In this case, it’s the Green Bay Packers salary cap. A fanless season led to a stagnant cap and uncharacteristic moves from the Green Bay front office in service of one goal: maximize a Super Bowl window with late-career Aaron Rodgers. With that window emphatically closed and another open with Jordan Love, the Packers can return to a more natural, “Some for now, some for later,” approach Brian Gutekunst has preferred, but with Love set to explode the bank amid a chance to win the title, Green Bay returns to a precarious tightrope of team building.

Had the cap not flattened because of the COVID season, Green Bay likely would not have treated contracts like Adrian Amos, Za’Darius Smith and others the way they did, slapping void years onto the end of them as part of restructures to kick the jingling financial can down the road. Even post-COVID, with the cap sheet maxed out thanks to top-of-market deasl for Rodgers, David Bakhtiari and Jaire Alexander the Packers had to take the void-year approach to Darnell Savage, De’Vondre Campbell and others, moves that didn’t result in meaningful football value for the team.

These cash-strapped risks always come with caveats, but in this case, it’s caveat emptor. Once the Packers pay Jordan Love and his full contract kicks in, likely in Year 3, Green Bay will once again find itself in position to win a Super Bowl while having to pay a premium for its quarterback. That can lead to some desperate deal-making.