Again, we need the Love Machine

[run pMc]

I don't think he'll be playing until the end of his contract. He'd be 43 going on 44 and I think (a) he'd be in considerable physical decline to play QB and (b) he doesn't want to play that long. He's been doing the retirement talk shuffle in interviews, and I don't think he's going to drag it out like Favre.

I do think at a minimum they will keep him through next year, after which time I suspect he'll hang it up. The young WRs might give him incentive to play longer, but not by a lot.

The dead cap hit isn't as bad after the 2023 season but would still be in the neighborhood of 10% of their total cap space.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/green-bay-packers/aaron-rodgers-3745/

The contract basically gives him a LOT of control and influence on the team in terms of cap space and roster management.

It also puts Jordan Love and the team in a tough spot - the team wants to see if he can be Rodgers' successor, but he won't get to play many/any games under his rookie contract. I was fine with the idea of them drafting a QB - I just thought they did it a year early. It did get the team 2 years of MVP play so maybe that's worth a R1 pick.

With the team basically out of playoff contention, I'm hoping Love gets a couple of games as starter. I think Rodgers should and will be the starting QB next year though. He'll be hungry and feel due for a bounce back season and won't want to go out this way.

[texaspackerbacker]

You're referring to Rodgers - who just turned 39 and is nearing the end of the first year of a three year contract? Your math (age 43 or 44) doesn't add up. I WISH he would be under contract until then hahahaha, and I'm pretty sure he'll be more than able to physically to do that.

That "control" you mention is the beauty of that contract. It virtually assures that Rodgers will be here until the end of it - unless, heaven forbid, HE decides it's time to quit.

The "deterioration" this season is not some long term sign of aging, IMO. It is minor injuries that will heal as well as circumstances with the rest of the team - Barry's D as well as WR and O Line injuries.

I read that the Packers are likely to pick up Love's fifth year option - a good thing IMO. He's a more than adequate backup QB now, and if he's around long enough, he may even be an adequate successor. It's questionable,though, whether he would be willing to wait enough years for Rodgers to be gone.

When/if the Packers are actually mathematically out of it this season, as I have said, I'm thinking they will treat it a lot like preseason games, Rodgers starting but Love getting a quarter or two. It's a positive if Love plays good whatever the future is - trade value, backup status, or starter at some point. And if he doesn't play good, better to find out sooner than later.

[ThunderDan]

When/if the Packers are actually mathematically out of it this season, as I have said, I'm thinking they will treat it a lot like preseason games, Rodgers starting but Love getting a quarter or two. It's a positive if Love plays good whatever the future is - trade value, backup status, or starter at some point. And if he doesn't play good, better to find out sooner than later.

Well, you are half right. It will be like a preseason game except Love with be starting. Arod hasn't taken a snap in preseason in years.

[bobblehead]

Interesting/ You acknowledge that kicking the can down the road can go on indefinitely, but you say at some point, the team will have to pay, and it will bite them in the ass.

At what point, would you expect that to happen? What would trigger the disaster you foresee? I could maybe see something like that if they decreased the cap or maybe even just kept it static, but that IMO is extremely unlikely. And even then, a LOT of teams would suffer - all but the very very few who aren't living on the edge cap-wise. Just in the normal progression of things, I'd say it can go on forever. Why/How do you think otherwise?

runPmc, There only would be all that dead money if Rodgers was cut or traded before the end of the contract. As I have said, doing that would be bonehead stupid regardless of cap considerations and more so with that.

Read slowly. Carefully. When you kick it, any further kicking it is simply to pay for previous kicking. At that point you ARE paying for the kicking. Once you have kicked the entire cap into the future you can only pay 53 guys minimum wage because you are stuck with an entire cap full of dead money. At that point you can keep kicking it, but you also continue, year after year to have an entire roster of minimum wage players.

[texaspackerbacker]

There you go again with static analysis. There might be a particle of truth to what you say if the cap was static/never went up, but obviously it does.

[Sparkey]

There you go again with static analysis. There might be a particle of truth to what you say if the cap was static/never went up, but obviously it does.

Look past the "right now". Of course the cap goes up, but players salaries also rise each year which means that those carry over cap hits decrease the value your available dollars. How, you say? Well lets start first with resigning your own free agents. As the cap rises, so to does the allotment of that cap that goes to new/extended player contracts. So the OLB that was valued at 18 million a year is now valued at 21. So what you say? Well, lets say they offer Gary a 4 year deal that averages 21 a year and but with a year one cap hit of 7 mil. He says no. Normally you have the franchise tag, but because of the escalating cap, that tag # also rises and if you tag him, his cap hit is 21 million. Suddenly you start having issues resigning you important players and have to let some good players walk because you have 14 million less cap space. So now you have to let some solid players leave.

Usually, this doesn't affect your star players, but it weakens the quality of depth on the roster. As soon as injuries start to remove some starters, the play of the team degrades more than it normally would. Close wins become close losses and the playoffs become an after thought.

[texaspackerbacker]

Let me know when any of that crap actually happens hahahahahaha. Your example about Gary, what player in his right mind is gonna turn down a contract simply because it is team friendly - when that team friendliness benefits the player even more than a team, the cap-beating process generally being large bonuses? Yeah, injuries can screw things up, but that is the case whatever way the cap is handled.

[sharpe1027]

It's pretty simple to me. Teams complete for the same free agents with the same cap limit. A team that has dead money because they kicked the can down the road will have less money available relative to a team that hasn't done this.

That's the trade-off.

[texaspackerbacker]

That probably is true to some extent, but the "kicking the can down the road" thing is arguably for the sake of retaining proven excellence while the free agent signing thing arguably brings in something a little less proven. If, however, a particular FA is deemed worth it, you can, of course, kick the can even farther down the road and go after him anyway. At worst, you just need to pick and choose a little better, as the Packers have pretty much done for several decades now.

The thing that detractors of this cap manipulation/kicking the can idea are in denial of is that it has gone on for a long time, generally with great success for those doing it - similar to the economic situation in general.

[sharpe1027]

The trade-off is real. Every team can kick the can, so the amount you can spend relative to every other team is directly impacted by your past actions of pushing spend to later years.

Bottom line, you'll be at a disadvantage trying to sign players realtive to other teams. Net result is another team will get first choice because they can spend more.

[bobblehead]

The trade-off is real. Every team can kick the can, so the amount you can spend relative to every other team is directly impacted by your past actions of pushing spend to later years.

Bottom line, you'll be at a disadvantage trying to sign players realtive to other teams. Net result is another team will get first choice because they can spend more.

And if you are the Rams you got a ring, but you got no money and no draft capital....and no QB atm.

[texaspackerbacker]

The Rams are a combination of bad luck and bad decisions. Pushing the cap to the limit/kicking the can is not the reason they are in trouble.

[Joemailman]

The cap situation impacted the Packers this year. It would have been nice to have Billy Taylor and Lucas Patrick when Bakhtiari was out and Newman was playing terrible. It would have been nice to have MVS as a deep threat while waiting for Watson to become a factor.

[texaspackerbacker]

Billy TURNER was so unimportant that you forgot his name hahahahaha.

And arguably, the cap had nothing to do with any of that.

[run pMc]

Turner was let go because of failing his physical, then signed with Denver and is playing for them. Was. He was on IR to start the season because of his knee, started a few games and hurt the knee again and is back on IR. My guess is GB could've kept him but didn't want to carry 3 starting-level OL on IR (including Bahktiari, Jenkins). The cap relief from releasing him wouldn't hurt either. Had he been healthy I think they would have kept him and he would have been a big upgrade of Royce Newman at RT to start the season. In fact, keeping Hanson on the bench and having Newman-Turner on the right side might have won them a game. I think Hanson-Newman tandem were bad enough to at least cost them several possessions in a loss, and thus contribute to it.

So I'd argue Turner was not unimportant, nor was the cap ramifications.

Not sure what this has to do with the topic of this thread, but whatever. Play Jordan Love at least the last 2 games.