Jordan Love’s low 2024 salary will make it easier to set new high-water mark

As the Packers and quarterback Jordan Love presumably close in on a new contract, there’s a growing belief that he’ll become the latest highest-paid player in NFL history — until the next one.

Love’s current salary makes that a lot easier to do.

It’s the old money/new money dynamic. If Love will be getting to $56 million per year through a five-year, $280 million extension (or, maybe, $55.1 million on a $275.5 million deal), it would actually be a six-year deal with only $10.5 million in “old money” added to the “new money” and creating a fresh long-term deal.

At $56 million per year in new money, it would be a six-year, $291 million contract. It would have a total average from signing of $48.5 million. At $55.1 million per year in new money, it would be six years and $286 million. The average payout would be $47.6 million from signing.

That’s the key point to remember when new mega-quarterback deals are stapled onto contracts with one or more years left. There are no extensions in the NFL. The old contract gets torn up, and it gets replaced with a new one. The lower the remaining cash on the old deal, the easier it is to pump up a new-money average that allows the player to seize, usually temporarily, the crown of richest contract ever.

Again, what matters will be the escape hatch for the Packers. How many years will the guaranteed money and/or the cap consequences tie the two sides together? At one end, there’s the Deshaun Watson deal, which binds the Browns and Watson for five, fully-guaranteed seasons. At the other end, it’s the Derek Carr extension from two years ago in Las Vegas. The one that was heralded as being worth more than $40 million per year for three years, in addition to the one year he had left.

And he literally had one year left.

The contract gave the Raiders an out after one season, and the Raiders took it.

For Love, the new-money average will be one factor. And it won’t really be all that important. What will matter is the full guarantee at signing, the rolling guarantees after year one and two, the cap charges and accelerations if he’s traded or released.

The money will be a given. What will ultimately matter is whether the Packers are committed to Love for one year (Derek Carr, Geno Smith), two years (Daniel Jones, Russell Wilson), three years, or longer.

Our guess is that it will be three. But who knows? If it was as easy as I’m making it seem, it would already be done.

It apparently will be soon. Until it is, coach Matt LaFleur will surely be reminding the front office that it’s hard to get the first-string offense ready to face the Eagles in Brazil with (checks notes and confirms spelling) Sean Clifford as QB1 and (checks notes and confirms he’s not a randomly generated Madden player) Michael Pratt as the backup.