Packers releasing Aaron Jones

[paco]

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[go pak go]

None of this makes sense.

[Labrev]

Another guy who has played with Rodgers, and is not one of his besties, showing no interest in going to play with him.

He would rather play for a team with no QB!

[paco]

None of this makes sense.

It does though, if you take out the emotion. We got a younger, arguably just as or more talented RB for the same cost (or close) as it was to keep Jones. It's likely a 1 year prove-it deal for Jacobs. We'll draft someone, see if Wilson grows and move on from there.

Jones was sick of re-doing his deal. I wouldn't doubt he would have again, if we didn't ask for such a drastic cut. It pissed him off, and he did what so many others did and made a decision to sign with the Vikings.

I was hoping he'd end up on the Texans and could see him do well there. But for what he signed for, it shows that the market wasn't really there for him. We likely made the right choice, though it'll hurt in the locker room some. But its a young group, they'll move on fast.

[YoHoChecko]

I also wanted him on the Texans, but I’m sorry the rest of your “this makes sense” doesn’t hold up.

We ostensibly could have had Jones for $8 million or Jacob’s for $14 million this year.

To me, without emotion, strictly on the football field with financial considerations, I choose the former 10 out of 10 times.

If we still need a RB again in 1-2 years regardless of who we picked; and if the money nets out to the negative; I just don’t see this as being a rationally good move or emotionally good move.

[Yoop]

I also wanted him on the Texans, but I’m sorry the rest of your “this makes sense” doesn’t hold up.

We ostensibly could have had Jones for $8 million or Jacob’s for $14 million this year.

To me, without emotion, strictly on the football field with financial considerations, I choose the former 10 out of 10 times.

If we still need a RB again in 1-2 years regardless of who we picked; and if the money nets out to the negative; I just don’t see this as being a rationally good move or emotionally good move.

What Paco was hinting is that Jones refused to take the cut from 11 plus mil. to 8 mil. so we weren't getting Jones for 8 mil.

I still tend to agree, I would have kept Jones at 11+.

this and the rasul deal just don't make sense to me.

[Pckfn23]

We ostensibly could have had Jones for $8 million or Jacob’s for $14 million this year.

To me, without emotion, strictly on the football field with financial considerations, I choose the former 10 out of 10 times.

If we are going to talk about not making sense, those numbers don't make sense. In terms of cap space, Jones was going to cost us $17 million this year. Josh Jacobs is going to cost us a little over $5.3 million in 2024. If we extend that out a little farther, we can cut at the end of the season having paid him $14.8 million. The $8 million figure for Jones is an imaginary number. I don't necessarily like this swap either, but it makes some sense. The cap hit for #1 RB is a wash in 2024, but we then get a 27 year old #1 RB in 2025.

The really interesting part about this, the Jacobs contract is almost exactly the same contract Jones got in 2021.

[BF004]

Disappointed in Jones, taking a few extra 100k to go to a dumpster fire of a team with no championship shot.

He’s a Texas kid and both Houston and Dallas need RBs and are likely to compete this year. I’d imagine he’d could have gotten close that money with either.


Probably wasn’t smart to sign 16 hours after being released, sleep on that.

[YoHoChecko]

We ostensibly could have had Jones for $8 million or Jacob’s for $14 million this year.

To me, without emotion, strictly on the football field with financial considerations, I choose the former 10 out of 10 times.

If we are going to talk about not making sense, those numbers don't make sense. In terms of cap space, Jones was going to cost us $17 million this year. Josh Jacobs is going to cost us a little over $5.3 million in 2024. If we extend that out a little farther, we can cut at the end of the season having paid him $14.8 million. The $8 million figure for Jones is an imaginary number. I don't necessarily like this swap either, but it makes some sense. The cap hit for #1 RB is a wash in 2024, but we then get a 27 year old #1 RB in 2025.

The really interesting part about this, the Jacobs contract is almost exactly the same contract Jones got in 2021.

Every report indicates that Jacobs will get $14.8 mil in year one and it's 1 year $14.8 or 2-years, $23

Jones and Packers were negotiating a contract alteration. $8 million is made up, but do you think if the Packers were offering $1M more than Jones can find on the market, Jones is saying no?

Those are the numbers. The cap is the cap. Jones' dead money counts if he's here or if he isn't; the opportunity cost is based on cash paid for him from now on. The cap allocates when money is accounted for; I used cash because it will all count at some point.

So yes. $14.8 million for Jacobs this year or $8 million for Jones this year. I stand by that. That's the choice. If you want to extend beyond this year, then you also have to make even more guesses about Jones. I'm comfortable making one guess that Jones would have stayed for more money than the Vikings ended up paying him. Personally, I would have extended Jones with a chunk signing bonus, low base salaries, and incentives--but that's more just speculative fan fiction.

What I KNOW is that we are paying Jacobs $14.8 million this year and/or $23 million over two years; and Jones is being paid $7 million for this year. And that's a value proposition I don't like.

[BF004]

I actually don’t think we could have gotten Jones for 7 or even 8 million from the sounds of it.

Sounds like when we came to an impasse, they rescinded their offer to Jones, whatever it was, and signed Jacobs.

Maybe they could have released him and tried to sign him on the open market, but you are dealing with Rosenhaus and hurt feelings at that point and you frankly just don’t know the exact market might be.


I agree I don’t like this swap, but I also don’t think we could have just gotten Jones for $7 million. At least without cutting him, having no RB guarantee in Jones and risk losing out on the other FAs.

[Pckfn23]

So yes. $14.8 million for Jacobs this year or $8 million for Jones this year. I stand by that. That's the choice.

That $8 million figure is not reality. We have no idea what Jones would have stayed in Green Bay for. For all we know he wasn't going to take a pay cut at all and his cap figure would have still been $17 million. So you can just as easily say $17 million for Jones and $14.8 million for Jacobs. You are also dealing for 2 different numbers. In Jones' case you are dealing with cap and in Jacobs' case you are dealing with cash. Jacobs' hit happens over multiple seasons, Jones just this one. It makes a difference. It doesn't seem extension was even on the table, but it may have been. I am on record saying I wanted to extend Jones and that was the route I would have preferred, but it didn't happen. No sense throwing out fictitious numbers to make the situation better or worse than it is.

What I KNOW is that we are paying Jacobs $14.8 million this year and/or $23 million over two years; and Jones is being paid $7 million for this year. And that's a value proposition I don't like.

It's a HUGE assumption to say we could have gotten Jones to cut his contract down to a $7 or $8 million cap hit.

[YoHoChecko]

I am dealing with cash in both. I was clear about that. And it’s not some wild assumption that he would have stayed in Green Bay if we paid him more than any other team is willing to pay him.

[Acrobat]

I love Aaron Jones, I have his jersey, but just dropping by to remind everyone that he turns 30 this year and has a history of durability issues.

[Pckfn23]

I am dealing with cash in both. I was clear about that. And it’s not some wild assumption that he would have stayed in Green Bay if we paid him more than any other team is willing to pay him.

Unless Jones was extended it isn't dealing with cash in both. If you start extending Jones then we are completely into the weeds of fantasy land.

It's not a wild assumption, but your $8 million figure is a huge assumption as it figures that Jones would have taken another massive pay cut. It's more likely that Jones was not going to take a pay cut at all and all $17 million was on the books for 2024.

[YoHoChecko]

Ok 23 let me break this down for you.

We have released Jones. He is not in our roster. How much of a cap hit do we have for him ?

Answer: $12.3 million.

That is what is called a sunk cost. No matter what we did with Jones—keep him or cut him—we have $12.3 million to account for. We could have gone post-June 1 and spread that hit out.

The way you keep talking about Jones at $17 million by including the sunk cost means that for apples to apples, we have to include the sunk cost in the price for moving on to Jacobs, too.

By getting lost in how the cap hits are spread out, you’re ignoring the bottom line that when you pay a player a certain amount of money, it gets accounted for in the cap at some point.

So I’m looking at the cash paid from this point forward. The sunk cost for Jones at $12.3 million is completely and totally unaffected by what happened from March 10 on. It was there in his old contract, it’s there after he’s gone. It would be there in an extension.

Yes. The cap matters. A lot. A ton. But I’m not ignoring the cap by focusing on cash. I’m eliminating the obfuscation of where the money is spread, because once money is paid, you can move the accounting around to make it work.

We’re giving Jacobs $14.8 million for one year or $23 million for two years. We’ll spread that out over 3-4 years even if he’s gone or renegotiates after two seasons. But the money is being paid and it will count.

Aaron Jones is being paid $7 million. Reports are that we asked him to take a pay cut of about 50%. He was due $12 million. So our offer is reported to be around $6 million.

I am proposing that if we offered $8 million to keep him, I’d prefer that expenditure than paying 14.8 million now and probably $23 million over two years for Jacobs.

And due to dead money and sunk costs, in order to look at an annual value rather than pick individual cap numbers for individual years that don’t tell the whole story, I am simply looking at how much cash is being paid to each player in order to play football in 2024 and possibly in 2025. Because at the end of the day we can only control what happens moving forward (no sunk costs) and because eventually all cash paid is accounted for in the cap.

[Pckfn23]

By getting lost in how the cap hits are spread out, you’re ignoring the bottom line that when you pay a player a certain amount of money, it gets accounted for in the cap at some point.

And that some point matters. Keeping Jones makes that some point 2024. Cutting Jones keeps that point at 2024, but reduces that cap hit to $12.3 million from $17.1 million. That matters. Signing Jacobs has a sunk cost of $14.8 million, but only $5,307,343 of that matters in 2024. Any Cash put into Jones is a sunk cost added to the 2024 cap. Cash put into Jacobs is a sunk cost spread over 1-4 years.

Aaron Jones is being paid $7 million. Reports are that we asked him to take a pay cut of about 50%. He was due $12 million. So our offer is reported to be around $6 million.

I am proposing that if we offered $8 million to keep him, I’d prefer that expenditure than paying 14.8 million now and probably $23 million over two years for Jacobs.

A BIG if, one that is only useful to drive a narrative. It's not a real number. All your talking points don't make any sense without it. I'd prefer an expenditure of veteran minimum, but it doesn't make it realistic to structure an entire narrative around. For all we know Aaron Jones would have not been willing to take any pay cut what so ever, so we are again looking at a $17.1 million cap hit to keep Jones compared to a $17.6 million cap hit to cut Jones and sign Jacobs.

eventually all cash paid is accounted for in the cap.

Absolutely, and no one ever said it wasn't. That has a different meaning though when you are talking 1 year compared to 4.

[Yoop]

so with 12.3 paid whether we kept Jones or not, and a 17.1 hit keeping him, Jones would have cost us 5.1 to keep this year, versus paying Jacobs 14.1 this year, did Jacobs come with stock in a petroleum Jelly company, cause it seems Brian Gutekunst will need all he can get

[Pckfn23]

$12.348 Million dead cap for Jones in 2024.
Jones had a base salary of $11.1 million and cap hit of $17.6 million in 2024 if he would have come back on that deal.
Josh Jacobs gets $14.8 million in cash in 2024 and counts $5,307,343 towards the 2024 cap.
Josh Jacobs' 2024 cap hit plus Aaron Jones' 2024 dead cap is $17,721,343.

Those are the factual numbers.

[Pugger]

I was just about to reply in the Jacobs thread wondering what to make of Jones' contract negotiation.

This sucks. Love me some Aaron Jones. Packer through and through. Best of luck to him.

Evidently when talks with Jones went south Gute switched his attention to Jacobs. I can understand the move but Jones will be missed.

[Acrobat]

Unpopular opinion alert, but I don't care about the little details of the contract. Josh Jacobs is a better RB than Jones. And I say that as a huge fan of Aaron Jones.