Ya know it's funny. Rodgers is, in many ways, totally right that the team probably planned to trade him and he wants to flex his muscles about it.
I think he's wrong about the timeline.
I'm in a wordy mood today, but let's review.
Rodgers signed a contract extension in 2018. He had 2 years remaining on his deal at the time (2019 and 2020). The deal was in total a 6-year deal (2018 - 2023). It offered him a record in new money over new years (34M/year), but was more accurately for cap purposes a 6-year deal averaging about $29 million per year.
Rodgers said at the time "This probably only guarantees 3 years." Late in 2019 or early in 2020, there was a restructure that pushed a few dollars back a little farther and
probably got him a 4th year guaranteed, due to dead money. That 4th year would be 2021. But only probably. And if you look at the cap numbers on Rodgers' deal, you can see why he got in his head about the three-year mark.
- image.png (42.23 KiB) Viewed 350 times
Look at that spike. GRANTED, that spike occurred
because of the 2019/2020 restructure and didn't pre-exist it to this degree, BUT, it always looked like 2021 was a big inflection point of the contract. And the restructure was done before drafting Love. So at the time Love was drafted, this is what Rodgers' cap situation looked like.
So Rodgers feel that with the structure of his contract, the massive spike in 2021, the drafting of Jordan Love... Rodgers is
convinced that this is all part of a plan to move on from him after 2020 and go with Love in 2021 to save from having to pay out the rest of the contract. And Rodgers now says "a wrench was put into that plan when I played the way I did."
It's all very rational.
HOWEVER.
I think it is MUCH more likely that the plan was always to move on either after 2021 or after 2022. I think that Rodgers underestimated the team's willingness to pay his big cap dollar years and underestimated the team's willingness to sit and develop Love for 2-4 years. But when I look at the cap situation, other players' contracts, and Love's development... Rodgers just mis-read the plan.
The plan was, of course, always contingent on Love proving himself. I know there are people who believe that if a GM drafts a QB in the first, he will NOT give up on that player. Tell that to Josh Rosen, but hey. But the hope was that Love developed nicely and that Rodgers won a Super Bowl in this stretch of years and that then, when Rodgers had 1-2 years left on his deal and Love had 1-2 years left on his deal, the team could make their selection and trade the other.
When I look at how BEAUTIFULLY that plan would/could have worked out, in terms of where the team is, where the roster is, when the cap crunch is coming, etc. (remember the covid year losses were not yet known or expected when all of this financial planning was being done, though were at least possible by the time Love was picked). Rodgers' contract becomes it's most moveable right when the other players' contracts make cap space valuable. Love's contract ends right after he could move into a starting role and get extended on an average QB deal based off of his 4th year salary, the projected 5th year option, and a franchise tag--creating a very good leverage situation for locking Love into a 6-year deal that he is likely to outplay, giving us prime post-development years at a relative bargain without ripping off the player and causing bad blood.
And so Rodgers thinks that his excellent play in 2020 threw a wrench in the plan to trade him THIS offseason. But actually, the only wrench thrown in is what Rodgers is doing right now. The plan to trade him next year or the year after IF Love looked like a success was PERFECT. It was so well-executed. It gave time and options for Love to display enough traits to get traded if Rodgers never falters. But it also lets the team move into the future if Love looks like he's the future. And if Gutey had only been better able manage his (and Murphy's) personal relationship with Rodgers, this team is in SUCH a good place.
But Rodgers wants more control over his life than NFL players typically get (and look, I felt that way in the Army, too. I left because I hated lacking control over my life decisions more than any other reason), and so he decided he's not going to let the team have that control. But he's wrong about what the plan was. And he's reacting to the wrong plan.
