Willis Value

[sharpe1027]

Trading Love costs $14,000,000 in a cap hit for 2026. We have to eat the remaining $50,000,000 in signing bonus but don’t have to pay his $36,000,000 in salary for 2026.

The $50M isn't completely balanced by the losa of salary. We would then still need to pay a starting QB salary, whether it's Willis or another QB. Unless we roll the dice on a rookie QB, we're going to have a lot less cap to go around.

[bobblehead]

Re-signing Willis purely for trading sounds like wishful thinking, because any signing bonus gets taken from our 2026 salary cap once we cut or trade him. Why would Willis sign an extension with a low or no signing bonus on the assurance that his Real 2026 Team will make him a competitive offer? Just cut out the maneuvering and be a free-agen QB with all the wining and dining and stupid signing-bonus offers from thirsty teams trying to out-think each other.

I've seen recent trades (like Rodgers to the Jets) use some convoluted lifting to have the receiving team cover guaranteed money and bonuses, but those mechanisms never get explained.

If some nimrod like me has picked up on the need to extend Willis midway through this season, surely the Packers didn't say, "Oh, crap, it's the last week of the season, and we never got around to Willis last season. We probably ought to do something before the pregame walkthrough." I guess Willis, his agent, and the Packers decided not to go for a high backup-level extension to a Top-3 cost QB if Willis had visions of proving his startability while on our team.

Even if he walks, it was a pretty good return on a 7th-round pick.

You should always work to maximize return, not say "pretty good". Trading Love right now is about max return for roster building. They won't do it for the same reason no portfolio manager excludes the top 15 names in the S&P 500.

[bobblehead]

Trading Love costs $14,000,000 in a cap hit for 2026. We have to eat the remaining $50,000,000 in signing bonus but don’t have to pay his $36,000,000 in salary for 2026.

Exactly. This is the first viable year we could trade him after we extended him. That cap hit would have been like 30 Million last year. This team eats 14 million dead cap for breakfast. Are we still paying for Bak? (I know we aren't, its a joke).

[bobblehead]

The $50M isn't completely balanced by the losa of salary. We would then still need to pay a starting QB salary, whether it's Willis or another QB. Unless we roll the dice on a rookie QB, we're going to have a lot less cap to go around.

They could make it work. The added draft capital would be worth it.....and unless you pay Willis 55 million you would reduce the cap in years 27/28

[pbmax]

And they should have traded Rasheed Walker in camp when Morgan showed he could handle starters in back to back games. Sadly in the "not for long" league GMs have no incentive to think past this year. Packers GM should be the one job that has that luxury. Howie Rosenstein of the Eagles was given a longer term timeline to build a roster because of his closeness to the owner and he did a stellar job of tearing it down and building for the long term. Bellicheat did the same constantly trading his picks for multiple picks in the next years draft that snowballed into long term success....but the smartest move 'cheat ever made was not insisting that "there is no QB controversy, Drew Bledsoe, former first overall pick, is our starting QB!!"

I dunno about that. The Packers were very short handed good lineman at times this year. He may have lost value as a trade asset but he more than made up for it by being there each week starting.

[bobblehead]

I dunno about that. The Packers were very short handed good lineman at times this year. He may have lost value as a trade asset but he more than made up for it by being there each week starting.

Did plugging him in at RG, LG, RT solve the problem of lacking quality OL?? I'd argue it was part of the problem. If he had locked into LT day 1 and left Belton to bounce around, or Kinnard or whoever the "new guy" replacing walker had been I'm not so sure it would have been worse. He was a disaster on the interior.

[pbmax]

Doubtful imo. Personally I think the packers should work really hard between the last game and the start of FA to get Willis to sing a deal comparable to what he is likely to get in FA. Then work the phones to trade Love. That won't happen unless Gutes is fired and replaced on day 1 AND its what Policy wants. But even if you sign him for said deal then trade him for a 3rd you accelerate when that pick is received by a year and remove the risk of the NFL fucking us as usual by giving us a 4th or 5th instead.

Willis has no reason to agree to this. If the Packers are in the market for his services as well as free agent suitors, his price is going up. You can argue that under this scenario he is guaranteed a starting job with a team he knows, but that might not be enough because the deal also needs to be team friendly. Because ...

The acceleration of Love's cap hits upon trading him on the current cap would be big. You not only need to get Willis under contract but also get the dead money covered.

And you would need to fire the Head Coach too, who said Love is the franchise quarterback just this week.

There is also the real chance you get nothing for Love. Because teams know you must release someone. Good luck getting max value out of that negative leverage situation.

[pbmax]

Did plugging him in at RG, LG, RT solve the problem of lacking quality OL?? I'd argue it was part of the problem. If he had locked into LT day 1 and left Belton to bounce around, or Kinnard or whoever the "new guy" replacing walker had been I'm not so sure it would have been worse. He was a disaster on the interior.

I don't think he was a disaster at Guard. It was barely better than Rhyan at times and thats not a good solution.

The question is can Jacob Monk play any better in there? Because he was the next guy up until they deemed Belton ready.

And that is the only scenario where losing Walker makes sense. If Morgan is at LT MAYBE they put Belton in at Guard earlier. But that is a lot of IFs for a guy they didn't think was ready. He had to train at least a bit at tackle because he was backup 2 until Kinnard came in late. And I'd argue Kinnard was signed because of injuries and doubts about Belton being ready Week 1.

[bobblehead]

Willis has no reason to agree to this. If the Packers are in the market for his services as well as free agent suitors, his price is going up. You can argue that under this scenario he is guaranteed a starting job with a team he knows, but that might not be enough because the deal also needs to be team friendly. Because ...

The acceleration of Love's cap hits upon trading him on the current cap would be big. You not only need to get Willis under contract but also get the dead money covered.

And you would need to fire the Head Coach too, who said Love is the franchise quarterback just this week.

There is also the real chance you get nothing for Love. Because teams know you must release someone. Good luck getting max value out of that negative leverage situation.

I have accepted that Gary and Jenkins are gone. That makes the cap situation not a situation. But again, this is all a thought exercise as Gutes won't trade Love. Won't happen. He is invested in being right. He is already right. Love is a good starter. If Willis leaves and wins the MVP Gutes won't be "wrong". If Willis stays and struggles he will be wrong.

[bobblehead]

I don't think he was a disaster at Guard. It was barely better than Rhyan at times and thats not a good solution.

The question is can Jacob Monk play any better in there? Because he was the next guy up until they deemed Belton ready.

And that is the only scenario where losing Walker makes sense. If Morgan is at LT MAYBE they put Belton in at Guard earlier. But that is a lot of IFs for a guy they didn't think was ready. He had to train at least a bit at tackle because he was backup 2 until Kinnard came in late. And I'd argue Kinnard was signed because of injuries and doubts about Belton being ready Week 1.

They are eating a ton of mistakes. They had it in their minds that Morgan would click at RG so the only place they played Belton was swing tackle in camp and for several weeks. They never intended Belton to play inside, it just became a necessity. If they had entered camp as I wanted which is exactly where we are right now minus Walker is on the team instead of the draft capital he would have drawn and Morgan is swing tackle instead of starting LT then maybe the OL would be functioning better as a unit right now. This team got lucky with Tom and marginally with Jenkins (he has actually only excelled at LG as a pro) and now they think they can draft anyone who has the right body type and "coach 'em up" to play the position they envision. A lot of scouts projected Morgan to a guard in the pros. They were all wrong. We took a project instead of Barton who had played enough interior to know he was going to be a good pro day 1.

Gutes has been a disaster for our OL. Tom and Jenkins are the only real quality guys he drafted since he took over. Walker was a nice find, but they don't want to pay him so that says a lot. Bak and Lindsey covered up their deficiencies. And don't tell me what a stud Runyan was. He lost his job near the end of his rookie deal and they were always looking to replace him. I still have high hopes for Williams. I want to know which scout is recommending the 7th round OL picks and promote him.

[pbmax]

I have accepted that Gary and Jenkins are gone. That makes the cap situation not a situation. But again, this is all a thought exercise as Gutes won't trade Love. Won't happen. He is invested in being right. He is already right. Love is a good starter. If Willis leaves and wins the MVP Gutes won't be "wrong". If Willis stays and struggles he will be wrong.

Acme Packing Company, I confess I don't know how good their track record is on cap projections, Ken Ingalls hasn't done anything new for 2026 for quite a while according to his Twitter feed, has it worked out that with releasing Jenkins and Gary and the next installment of Clark's dead money, then RFA tenders and futures contracts, the Packers have functionally minimal cap space for free agents.

Outside of a major roster upheaval, that rules out letting Love go or signing even a single substantial ticket FA.

So what’s the count? Well, including the remaining dead caps for Kenny Clark ($17 million), Gary ($11 million) and Jenkins ($4.8 million), Green Bay will have around $291 million on the cap in 2026, based on my back-of-the-napkin math. The NFL’s cap in 2026 is expected to be $295.5 million, per Over the Cap.

The good news is that the Packers will roll over about $10 million in cap space from 2025 into 2026 as it stands today, which should give the team about $14.5 million to work with next year.

Here’s the bad news. That $14.5 million will need to account for the following:

The cost of the two extra roster spots (51 to 53) once the cutdown deadline passes at the end of the preseason. (Assume this costs about $1 million for each roster spot.)
The cost of all 17 practice squad spots on the team throughout the year. ($234,000 to $315,000 per player for the season. Average cost around $4 million in total.)
Replacement players on the 53-man roster whenever any player goes on the injured reserve. (About $1 million each, depending on when in the year this happens.)
Any extensions, including to players like Tucker Kraft, who is a free agent after next year.
Functionally, that remaining $14 million ($10 million that’s coming from the 2025 team) is close to $0.

Now the Kraft extension theoretical is hiding some space, but Kraft or not, you are going to need to sign someone if only for injury replacement and the $4 mil listed above might be low unless they stick solely to true free agents and not waivers for vets.

However, if we roll possible extensions next year into replacement players during next year, they have at most $8 mil to work with for emergencies and flexibility. And I don't think this covers the cost of draft picks. There isn't enough to eat Love's contract.

If this breakdown is close to accurate, then we might have a surprise release or trade yet.

https://www.acmepackingcompany.com/green-bay-packers-salary-cap/77382/what-the-packers-salary-cap-situation-could-look-like-in-2026

[Fritz]

I don't know much about the capology stuff, but from what very little I've read and know, it would be cost prohibitive to trade Love.

So the team literally cannot afford a QB controversy.

[Joemailman]

I don't know much about the capology stuff, but from what very little I've read and know, it would be cost prohibitive to trade Love.

So the team literally cannot afford a QB controversy.

Basically trading Love would make their cap situation 15 million worse. And of course then you'd have to pay Willis.

[sharpe1027]

I'd trade him and roll the dice on Willis if he's agreeable to that. The cap hit sucks this year, but it only gets worse in future years.

That being said, Love is a damn good QB and I am glad we have him even with the large contract.

[texaspackerbacker]

People who are overly concerned about the cap - like the crap above - need to learn the difference between static analysis and dynamic analysis.