Jordan Love showing signs of his first-round talent in training camp, leaving succession plan open
In November of 2008, Aaron Rodgers' first year as QB1 Green Bay, Ted Thompson had the foresight to give him a six-year, $63 million deal after just seven NFL starts. It would have been a bargain at twice the price by today’s standards. It’s fitting then that if Rodgers plays two more seasons including 2022, Brian Gutekunst could be in a position to do the same thing with Jordan Love.
Earlier this spring, Tom Silverstein suggested the most likely timeline for Rodgers was one or two more years with a three-year run looking unlikely. That just so happens to be the perfect timeline for Love, who is entering Year 3 of a four-year contract with a fifth-year option. Complicating the succession plan like a Kendall Roy picture message, Love’s option has to be picked up by the team next offseason.
In other words, the team would have to know by next spring not only if Rodgers plans to play in 2023 but also if he does, will that be it?
A year ago at this time, that question appeared moot. Rodgers would never play for the Packers beyond 2022. It was their Last Dance after a months-long pas de deux during which Rodgers demanded accountability for past front office transgression including a suggestion Gutekunst trade him if the team believes so strongly in Love playing sooner than later.
It looked like Love would be the no-doubt starter heading into this training camp.
A year later, Rodgers is the back-to-back MVP rather than just simply the reigning MVP, he’s on a new contract that everyone in the organization openly admits is essentially the quarterback version of a month-to-month lease on an apartment, and while Rodgers no longer desperately wants out. Even so, Matt LaFleur, Mark Murphy, and Gutekunst (and maybe even Rodgers himself) are in the dark about just how long Rodgers will desperately want in.
That raises the question of Love’s future.
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