With Jordan Love now eligible for extension, what might a new Packers deal look like?

An NFL player is not allowed to sign a new contract extension until 12 months after signing their last one, per the NFL’s latest collective bargaining agreement.

Packers quarterback Jordan Love inked a one-year extension on May 3, 2023, instead of the team exercising or declining his fifth-year option. That option would’ve guaranteed Love about $20 million for the 2024 season before he ever took the field as Green Bay’s full-time starter in 2023. Instead, Love signed a short-term extension that guaranteed him $13 million, according to Spotrac.

Friday is May 3, 2024, when one of last season’s breakout stars can sign a new deal. The Brink’s truck stayed in the warehouse last year. This time around, it’ll be parked right outside Lambeau Field for the player the Packers hope is their quarterback for the next decade-plus.

“We want to do it the right way and certainly, the sooner, the better,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said of Love’s new deal at the annual league meeting in late March. “But at the same time, we want to make sure we do it the right way. We’ve started (negotiations), but it’s not something that’s going to go quickly. It’ll take some time.”

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Gutekunst said in February that he “absolutely” expected running back Aaron Jones back for the final year of his contract, but Jones is now a Viking after declining to take the approximately 50-percent pay cut that Green Bay wanted him to. In other words, Gutekunst has said he wants to extend Love, but nothing is final until the ink is on the paper (the deal will happen, maybe just not this weekend).

What might that new contract look like and where might Love rank among quarterbacks’ average annual salaries once he signs it? As it stands, Love ranks 20th in that department at $13.5 million. The top five are Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow ($55 million), the Chargers’ Justin Herbert ($52.5 million), Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson ($52 million), Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts ($51 million) and Pittsburgh’s Russell Wilson because of his Broncos contract (about $48.5 million).

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Based on last season’s play and future potential alone, you can argue that Love deserves to be in the top five. And if Love’s ascension continues, such a deal could look like a bargain for the Packers in a couple of years.

Before Love signs, Spotrac founder Michael Ginnitti helps us sift through the numbers of hypothetical extensions with an estimate of what Love’s new deal will look like.

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Mathematical projection

Ginnitti: If we’re projecting Love’s next contract in Green Bay simply by the numbers, our math says we should be looking at a four-year extension including $144 million of new money ($36 million per year). How did we get here? The four most comparable variable contracts include the Seahawks’ Geno Smith ($25 million per year), the Giants’ Daniel Jones ($40 million per year), the Chargers’ Justin Herbert ($52.5 million per year) and the Bengals’ Joe Burrow ($55 million per year). Statistically speaking, this provides us a near perfectly balanced percentage change when factoring in a variety of passing/rushing statistics.

Data via Spotrac

But is it realistic to assume that Love will be operating on a contract worth $20 million per year less than the top quarterbacks in football? No.

First off, the league salary cap increase (plus-13.6 percent) should have agents resetting their own expectations (as seen with recent wide receiver extensions across the league).

Secondly, Love has already agreed to and half played out a “bridge deal.” If the contract being offered this time around doesn’t reflect upper-echelon quarterback pay, Love and his representation are arguably better served to play out the 2024 season under his current contract ($11 million cash) with a high-priced franchise tag or free agency on the table thereafter.

Schneidman: You don’t mess around with someone you think can be your franchise quarterback. The Packers wouldn’t pay wide receiver Davante Adams what he wanted when he wanted it before eventually trading him to the Raiders, but they’ve since replaced him with four wideouts in Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks who make up one of the best young wideout corps in the league.

This is not to say any of them are anywhere close to Adams’ level or ever will be, but finding a quarterback who can sniff what Love appears to be capable of would be more difficult. The Packers won’t want to risk Love and agent David Mulugheta deciding to play out his contract year with no long-term security. Even though the Packers could franchise tag Love and retain his rights for another year, the far more simple and amicable resolution is to sign him to a contract extension this offseason.

And if you think a top-five average annual value contract for half a season worthy of such a payday is extravagant, that’s simply the price of doing business in the NFL. Sometimes, as with the Giants and Jones, such a gamble doesn’t pay off. The Packers hope the one they’re about to take does, and maybe even it looks like a bargain in short order.

Davante Adams on @TheRushWithMaxx about Jordan Love:

“The kid is a f*cking baller, man.”https://t.co/bU0u0fpupW pic.twitter.com/ygrJpUT7lh

— Zach Heilprin (@ZachHeilprin) April 30, 2024

Adjusted projection

Ginnitti: If we attempt to adjust our outcome based on logic and reason, it seems best to begin by stating that Jones’ $81 million, two-year guarantee should become an absolute floor for any young quarterback looking to step into his next contract. Jones scored that $40.5 million average guarantee against a $224.8 million league salary cap, or an 18-percent allocation. If we adjust that up to the current $255.4 million league cap, we’re now approaching a $46 million per year average annual guarantee.

Now, if we assume that Love is on track to be a better quarterback than Jones in the coming years, the numbers need to be adjusted north even more. If we bring Herbert into the equation (a player our math says Love compares to quite favorably), we’re now dealing with a $133 million guarantee over three years, against a $224.8 million salary cap, or a 19.8-percent allocation. Adjusted forward for 2024, and the average guarantee now becomes $50.5 million, which also just so happens to be the total value average salary across Herbert’s seven-year contract.

In this regard, it’s not hard to envision a four-year, $200 million extension for Love (five years, $211 million total value, including $151.5 million practically guaranteed over the next three or three and a half seasons). Of course, this kind of guarantee structure would involve Green Bay shifting away from its rigid “no base salary guarantee” policy, but with most other teams going this route for their blockbuster quarterback contract, the Packers are likely next to follow suit.

Schneidman: While Love sitting behind Aaron Rodgers for three seasons certainly had its perks, this is one of the drawbacks, if you even want to call it that. The Packers only have one season of Love starting to base their decision on when it comes to paying him big money. If Love had started for, say, two or three seasons before it came time to pay up, they’d have a much bigger sample when trying to project what’s to come.

This payday may come with a couple more butterflies in Gutekunst’s stomach because it’s really based on only the second half of last season since Love’s first half was mediocre at best. Then again, the Packers rolled the dice on drafting him with three years left on Rodgers’ contract and moving on from Rodgers to start Love when they did, so who’s to say this roll of the dice to potentially pay a guy with such little track record more than $50 million per year won’t pay off, too?

(Photo: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)