GREEN BAY, Wis. — Jordan Love will likely have more than just one year to prove he’s the Green Bay Packers‘ quarterback of the future.
However, that assurance did not come via the fifth-year option on his rookie deal, which would have paid him a guaranteed $20.272 million for 2024, after making $2,298,655 in 2023, his first season as the starter.
Instead, the two sides on Tuesday agreed to a one-year contract extension worth up to $22.5 million (including $13.5 million fully guaranteed), a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The agreement was reached just hours before Tuesday’s fifth-year option deadline.
When asked on Saturday after the draft concluded whether there was any reason the Packers wouldn’t pick up the option year, general manager Brian Gutekunst said: “It’s a lot of money for a guy who hasn’t played, but at the same time, obviously we’re moving forward with him. So we’ll figure that out by Tuesday.”
Had they declined it outright, the Packers would have had an out if they didn’t like what they saw from Love during the 2023 season. In that case, they could have still tried to work out a contract extension during or shortly after the season. If that had failed, they’d have the option to use the franchise tag, but that would be far more expensive than the fifth-year option price.
The New York Giants were in a similar position last season with quarterback Daniel Jones, a first-round pick in 2019. They did not pick up the option and preferred to let their quarterback play out the final season of his rookie deal. Then in March, they signed him to a four-year, $160 million contract just hours before the deadline to use the franchise tag.
One major difference is Jones actually had 37 games of starting experience over his first three seasons at the time the Giants had to make their call on the option in May 2022.
Love has just one career start — a 13-7 loss at Kansas City in the 2021 season — and played meaningful snaps in only one game last season, in the Packers’ late November loss at Philadelphia.
The Packers had only about $12 million in available salary-cap space for this season, and most of that will be needed to sign their 13-player draft class. That was before they agreed to Love’s extension and a renegotiated contract with safety Darnell Savage on Tuesday.
They have $40,313,570 in dead money from Aaron Rodgers’ contract on their salary cap this season, but they will be free of any further cap charges for Rodgers in 2024.
They gained an additional $5.46 million from Savage’s deal. He is in his fifth-year option worth $7.9 million. The Packers converted $6.82 million of that (including a $4 million signing bonus) into proratable cap money and added voidable years from 2024 through ’27. However, they added roster bonuses into the voidable years that would allow them to do an extension with Savage before free agency next March. With them, the league rule that prevents an extension of renegotiated contracts would not apply.
The Packers plan to make Savage a bigger part of their defense this year after his role fluctuated last season.
Savage’s restructure was agreed to over the weekend and on Monday he rejoined the Packers for their offseason program.
“Darnell’s back in Green Bay this offseason working with coaches and teammates to help lead the defense and build on the success they had as a unit late last season,” Savage’s agent, Seth Katz, told ESPN.