Rob DimowskiESPN staff writer4 minutes to read
Why Jordan’s Love Extension Is ‘A Good Compromise’
Todd McShea explains how the Packers helped Jordan Love in the draft before giving him a one-year extension.
Green Bay, Wis. – Jordan Love likely has just over a year to prove he’s the Green Bay Packers quarterback of the future.
However, that guarantee didn’t come through a fifth-year option on his rookie deal, which would have paid him $20.272 million guaranteed for 2024, after he made $2,298,655 in 2023, his first season as a starter.
Instead, on Tuesday, the two sides agreed to a one-year contract extension worth up to $22.5 million (including $13.5 million fully guaranteed), a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The agreement was reached just hours before Tuesday’s year-fifth option deadline.
When asked on the Saturday after the conclusion of the draft if there was any reason why the Packers didn’t pick the option year, general manager Brian Gutkunst said, “It’s a lot of money for a guy who didn’t play, but at the same time, we’re obviously moving forward with him. So we’ll find out by day.” Tuesday “.
Had they rejected it outright, the Packers would have walked out if they didn’t like what they saw of love during the 2023 season. In that case, they could still try to extend the contract during or shortly after the season. Failing that, they would have the option to use the franchise tag, but that would be much more expensive than the price of the fifth-year option.
The New York Giants were in a similar position last season with quarterback Daniel Jones, going into the first round in 2019. They didn’t pick the option and preferred to let the quarterback play in the final season of their rookie deal. Then in March, they signed him to a four-year, $160 million contract extension just hours before the deadline to use the franchise tag.
One major difference is that Jones already had 37 games of starting experience over his first three seasons by the time the Giants had to make their option call in May 2022.
Love has only one career start — a 13-7 loss at Kansas City in the 2021 season — and played meaningful snaps in just one game last season, in a late-November Packers loss in Philadelphia.
The Packers only had about $12 million in salary cap space available for the season, and most of that will be needed to sign the 13-man draft class. That was before they agreed to extend Love and renegotiate the contract with safety Darnell Savage on Tuesday.
They have $40,313,570 in dead money from Aaron Rodgers’ contract on their pay cap this season, but will be free of any additional cap charges for Rodgers in 2024.
They received an additional $5.46 million from the Savage deal. He’s on his fifth year option worth $7.9 million. The Packers converted $6.82 million of that (including the $4 million signing bonus) into divisible cap money and added cancelable years from 2024 through 27. However, they did add standing bonuses to the cancelable years from That would allow them to extend with Savage before free agency next March. With them, the league’s rule preventing extensions of renegotiated contracts will not apply.
The Packers plan to make Savage a bigger part of their defense this year after his role fluctuated last season.