Packers Give Jordan Love Extension Through 2024. Why this is a win win for both sides.
Jordan Love secures $13.5 million in 2024
The Sideline Scoop is a newsletter dedicated to all things Packers. If you’d like to join 700+ Packers fans who receive this newsletter throughout the week feel free to subscribe.
Today was a very important day for the Packers organization. It marked the deadline for deciding whether or not to exercise Jordan Love’s 5th year option. If exercised the Packers would pay JordanLove a guaranteed 20.27 million in 2024. Without exercising the option Jordan Love would become a free agent after the 2023 season. So which option did the Packers decide?
NEITHER!
The Packers decided not to exercise the option but to instead give Love a contract extension through 2024.
While the 5th year option would have forced the Packers to pay Love a guaranteed $20.27 million, this new extension allows the Packers to only pay Love a guaranteed $13.5 million in 2024. This means that they owe him $6.77 million less guaranteed than if they were to exercise the option. But on the other hand Jordan Love can make an additional $2.23 million if he reaches the incentives the Packers set.
Another important factor in this situation has to do with a raise Jordan Love will reportedly be getting this year, 2023. Here’s what sports illustrated’s Bill Huber reported earlier this morning:
“A source told Packer central that Love received a ‘big raise’ for 2023 as part of the deal.”
So apparently Love will make more than he was going to in 2023 playing on the last year of his rookie contract. I’m curious to see just how much of a raise he will get in 2023. Those details have not yet come out.
Now let’s take a look at both sides and the reasons they have for agreeing to this type of deal.
If you are the Packers it is smart in my opinion to get Love under contract for 2024 before the 2023 season begins. If the Packers had decided to let him play in 2023 without giving him a contract they run the risk of having to pay him A LOT more money in 2024 than they do under the current new deal. For example, if Love comes into 2023 and plays as the top 10 QB in the NFL the Packers would have to pay him somewhere around $40 million per year. That’s what Giants QB Danile Jones' contract is valued at as the 10th highest contract at QB in the league.
So now if Love has a great year in 2023 the Packers get him for much cheaper in 2024.
And because the Packers didn’t exercise his option if he plays poorly in 2023 they only owe him $13.5 million as opposed to the $20.27 million as I discussed earlier.
If you are Jordan Love you had the choice of accepting or declining this new deal. If the Packers didn’t want to exercise the option Jordan Love had every right to not agree to this 1 year extension through 2024. He could have said that he would play in 2023 without a new contract and hope that he would play his way into a massive contract in the 2024 off-season. Instead he decided on guaranteed money for 2024.
If you are Jordan Love you are guaranteeing that you walk away with $13.5 million regardless of what happens in 2023. He’s also saving himself in the off chance that he suffers some kind of bad injury. He can go into 2023 knowing that he’s secured himself a good chunk of change. Then if he plays great in 2023 and 2024 he’ll get that massive contract that all NFL players dream of getting. He saves himself from the downside of losing out on money after 2023 if things go awry. Plus if he hits all of the incentives for 2024 he’ll make even more than he would have with the 5th year option.
Not only that, it helps lower his cap hit in 2024. The Packers are already scheduled to have lots of cap space in 2024 with Aaron Rodgers contract off the books after this year, and this goes to make Love’s cap hit even lower helping the Packers cap in 2024.
This feels like a win win to me.
After posting a youtube video on Love’s new extension earlier today on my youtube channel I got a lot of comments saying that this shows that the Packers don’t believe in Jordan Love. I don’t think that could be further from the truth. If the Packers really didn’t believe in Love they wouldn’t have agreed to pay him $13.5 million guaranteed in 2024. They could have just let him play out 2023 and then moved on after this year. Why pay a guy if you don’t believe in him?
This gives Jordan Love 2 years to show what he has to offer. Even though you want to see something of value to build on after year 1 I think it’s way too early to judge a player's entire future off of just 1 season. There have been many QBs who are average in their first year and then come back in year 2 or 3 playing at an elite level.
This first year is going to be a learning process as Love settles into being a starting quarterback and all of the Packers new young weapons learn the offense. It wouldn’t be surprising if there are some growing pains along the way. We have to give these guys time and have the patience to allow them to put it all together.
All in all this is a great day for the Packers and Jordan Love. Both sides get to move forward taking away something of value from this new deal.
Next year the cap hit for David Bakhtiari is $40,000.000. Not sure how the Packers will be handling his contract. Do they, yet again, push his contract down the road again, take the cap hit or extend his contract knowing his knee may give out again? Is it possible that Jordan Love is willing to take a lesser contract to help out the Packers and let his play dictate a huge contract in 2025? Only time will tell! Thanks again for the update Luke! Let us know what Love will receive for his new salary in 2023 when you get the information.