Why a Jets Trade Package for Aaron Rodgers Might Not Include Their First-Round Pick

If the Packers quarterback is headed to New York, the deal will be about much more than his talent alone.

You had a lot of questions. And we had a lot to get to after a wild couple of days coming off the NFL combine …

From Robert Dalton (@RobertDalton02): What would a Jets package for Aaron Rodgers look like?

Robert, let’s say this year’s second-rounder (43rd) and a conditional 2025 pick that’ll ride on how well Rodgers plays, and whether he plays in ’24. I might be wrong, but based on what I know, I don’t think the Jets will have to give up this year’s first-round pick.

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From Seán (@sonofmalachynyc): Will NYJ have to trade No. 13 in any potential deal for Aaron Rodgers?

Seán, I don’t think so. And there’s a valuable lesson in that, in the end, it may not even cost the Jets a first-round pick to get Aaron Rodgers. When you trade a player, the trade isn’t simply the player’s skill level at the time of the deal. It’s about his contract. It’s about his age. It’s about the number of teams that are interested. In this case, those things are working against Green Bay GM Brian Gutekunst.

• The contract gives Rodgers all the leverage. He’s due a $58.3 million option bonus (which prorates over four years for a new team), plus a $1.165 million base. I don’t know whether the Jets are willing to pay him $59.465 million in 2023, or if they’d be looking for a discount on that. What I do know is neither they, nor any other team, will trade for Rodgers’s contract without knowing Rodgers is on board with going. And the number also works to crush his trade value, because the more you pay in cash, the less you’re willing to give up in picks.

• Rodgers turns 40 in December. That means, if you’re another team, you’re not looking at five years from him—like the Browns (Deshaun Watson) or Broncos (Russell Wilson) or Rams (Matthew Stafford) could reasonably expect from the quarterbacks they got in trades. In this case, it’s year-to-year, and a second year won’t come cheap. He’s due a $47 million base and $2.25 million base in 2024, when he’ll turn 41. (Remember, when you trade first-round picks, you’re trading five years of control over ascending talents.)

• Because of this, among other factors, there’s a narrow path to landing Rodgers. You have to have the money and be willing to pay it. You have to have a win-now roster, otherwise you wouldn’t be pursuing him in the first place. You have to have flexibility to add players he might want to bring with him. You have to have a coaching staff he wants to work with, and geography that he likes. It’s a lot of boxes to check. It’s why, in the end, there were really only two teams in the running for Tom Brady. I can’t imagine there’ll be many more for Rodgers.

That, by the way, isn’t an affront to Rodgers as a player—he can still play, and we’ve seen what happens with motivated all-time greats (Brady, Brett Favre, Joe Montana) when they land on new teams. It’s just the way NFL trades work. They’re about way more than just how good a player is. Which is why I don’t think trade comp will be a stumbling block at all, if there’s a Jets-Packers deal to be done here.

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By Kevin Cottrell Jr. (@KCJ_Swish): When was the last time a franchise QB under 30 was allowed to negotiate with other teams? The nonexclusive tag seems to be the biggest “contract-related” story in years.

Kevin, it sure is a big story, and one without a ton of precedent. I could give you the case of Kirk Cousins, for one—He was on the nonexclusive tag in 2016, at 27 years old, and wound up signing his tender that summer. He became a free agent two years later (he played on the exclusive tag in ’17) and signed the first fully guaranteed multiyear deal (it was for three years) in modern NFL history that offseason.

Lamar Jackson’s situation is different. He’s a better player than Cousins is, but he’s also a significantly more complicated one. He’s finished the last two years on the shelf. He’s not the biggest guy to begin with. His skill set incentivizes (if not demands) you to run a certain type of offense for him, one that means he’s going to keep taking hits. And the mileage on his body over the first five years of his career is pretty much unprecedented.

So this isn’t as easy as saying, Lamar is incredible, go sign him!

I’d do it, for the same reason the Browns went all-in on Deshaun Watson last year. It’s going to be hard to get into the club over the coming years—where the Bills, Chiefs and Bengals are with young quarterbacks who will keep the championship window ajar for the foreseeable future. Watson, if things go right, can get you in. Same with Jackson.

But the reality is if you’re a coach or GM, and you acquire Jackson, you’re tying your job security to his ability to stay healthy, and your staff’s ability to build an offense for him. I can see where that could be a daunting thought.

As for the Ravens’ place in this, to me, it’s simple. They’ve spent two years trying to get something done with Jackson, to no avail, and have decided to use the nonexclusive tag to generate an endgame. One of two things, as I see it, happens here, so long as a market for Jackson develops. Either the Ravens match an offer sheet—meaning someone else will have written the contract for them after all that time spent trying to find a middle ground—or the Ravens let him go, with a minimum return of two first-round picks (or more in a sign-and-trade).

Barring the nightmare scenario of there being no offer sheet, which would leave Jackson and the Ravens in an awkward spot of having to work it out or having Jackson play on the tag, I think it’s actually understandable that Baltimore saw this as a way to get a conclusion to the whole saga.

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From Gil (@jets_fan53): Are the Jets interested at all in Lamar Jackson?

Gil, I think they’ll explore it if they strike out on Rodgers. Remember, Jets GM Joe Douglas has close ties to the Ravens, so his information on Jackson will be really good, and for all the slings and arrows he’s taken, OC Nathaniel Hackett’s a creative guy who could build an offense for Jackson. It’s an intriguing idea. 

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From Chris Monahan (@cm33rd): How much longer will the #NFLCombine survive ... at least in its current format?

Chris, I’ll answer this in two ways.

The first applies to the scenario in which it stays in Indianapolis. If the league doesn’t move it, then the combine will have staying power. It’s valuable for the medical information and interviews with players, of course (forget the athletic testing, that’s secondary), but it is just as much so for the fact that it’s a de facto convention for pro football—the closest equivalent the league has to baseball’s winter meetings. A lot of business is done there, and that’s a big reason why most teams’ top decision-makers spend the whole week there.

The second way I’ll answer this is under the scenario where the combine is moved—that’ll be where it becomes a hollowed-out, watered-down version of what it is now. My guess is that would be the point where teams, some of which have already scaled back on sending assistant coaches and scouts, start to simply send skeleton crews in. At that point, the value of being there for prospects is materially affected, and I think the league would have to do some real coaxing to get the top guys to participate at all.

The combine has been held in Indianapolis since 1987, five years after the scouting event launched :: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

Indy is unique in that it’s a convention town, where the restaurants and bars and hotels are interconnected, and attached to the convention center and football stadium. It makes for an easy environment to do business and network. Had the combine been in Dallas this year, everyone would’ve been staying spread out at hotels around Six Flags Over Texas. Had it gone to Inglewood, Calif., everyone would’ve been put up at hotels at LAX.

Maybe it’s me, but I don’t think people are going to be tripping over one another to spend a week at an airport hotel, Uber through traffic to a stadium and have to work to find all the people they need to see. Bottom line, the NFL’s effort to turn the combine into something it can better monetize could really screw it up (and don’t get me started on how badly it could mess up the medical evaluation of prospects for teams).

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From Wayne Jeffrey (@Wayne59779066): Where do you think Anthony Richardson will go? He seems like a very risky pick.

Wayne, it is risky, no question. I think the best illustration of that is in the limited reps he’s gotten as a college player. He had 393 attempts in three years at Florida, and he came from an option offense in high school. By comparison, Trevor Lawrence had 1,138 attempts and Patrick Mahomes had 1,349. With Justin Fields and Cam Newton, the lack of college reps was considered an issue, but even those guys had 618 and 628, respectively.

That, by the way, doesn’t mean Richardson didn’t exhibit growth.

“We were only with him for a year, but I would tell you this—I think that he made progress in a lot of areas,” Florida coach Billy Napier told me Sunday. “He’s a one-year starter that has phenomenal physical traits, he’s very smart and he decided to come out. He bet on himself. And I’m just excited because I think some of the things that he believed in and anticipated happening are happening. So the guy’s a product of his work and I think that yesterday was a great example of the work that he's put in.”

You can read into that what you will. But here’s what I take from Napier—Richardson’s smart, he can learn, he’s an incredible talent and he’s got a long, long way to go. And that’s something, if you’re a team, you really have to consider and plan for.

Some have said that Richardson has to sit, the same logic that applied to Jordan Love three years ago. But there’s a difference here. Love’s needs are different than Richardson’s. Love’s were more about adapting a wild-horse playing style in a wide-open college offense, in addition to shaky fundamentals, to the pros. He needed to learn, and he would best do it away from live fire. Love actually threw the ball a lot in college (1,125 attempts), so his deficiency wasn’t in what he hadn’t gotten a chance to see.

Defensive ideas he’s seen are exactly where the problem is with Richardson—he hasn’t seen enough. The volume of defensive ideas (and the experience applying offensive ideas against them) he has is very, very small. So much so that I’ve actually had some coaches and scouts tell me Richardson doesn’t need to sit—he needs to play. And he needs to make his mistakes, and see things and work through all of it, with the idea that his playmaking ability will buy him time to develop. For a team, though, that might mean throwing a season overboard.

If you’re Nick Caserio or Chris Ballard or Scott Fitterer, GMs who were inherited by their coaches, are you ready to do that? Or would you look at the more developed, safer Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud and say, I’m gonna put this one in the middle of the fairway.

It’s an interesting question. I think Richardson goes top 10. I don’t think he goes first overall—in fact, there’s a better chance he’s the fourth quarterback pick than the first. I could be wrong, of course. The draft’s still seven weeks away.

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From Captain Acab (@ZackyNFL): Anthony Richardson draft position over or under 4.5?

Over, but not by much.

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From Jacob Moore (@jabo1331): Projected Jonathan Jones contract (with the Pats or a different team)?

Jacob, let’s say he does a three-year, $24 million deal, with $17 million guaranteed. To me, the Jonathan Jones comp on the market would be Mike Hilton, who signed a four-year, $24 million deal in Cincinnati as a top slot corner in 2021.

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From A$AP Brad (@severn58): Chiefs LT options, GO!

Brad, fortunately for you, I got three scenarios to lay out for the Chiefs.

• The first is a total revamp of the position, starting with a veteran like Tampa Bay’s Donovan Smith. (I don’t think they go in on Taylor Lewan, who’s broken down a bit physically). In this scenario, Kansas City could spend the 31st pick on Oklahoma’s Anton Harrison and start him out at right tackle, or take a natural right tackle, like Tennessee’s Darnell Wright or Ohio State’s Dawand Jones, that has the athletic ceiling to eventually evolve into the left tackle. The overall idea being that, of course, a vet stopgap would eventually hand the job off.

• The second is to commit to going with a rookie at left tackle, which would probably mean drafting someone like Harrison or North Dakota State’s Cody Mauch (barring a big move up for Northwestern’s Peter Skoronski, Ohio State’s Paris Johnson Jr. or Georgia’s Broderick Jones), and then re-signing Andrew Wylie to play right tackle.

• The third would be re-signing Orlando Brown Jr. and then deciding between keeping Wylie, drafting Wright or Jones, or both.

Either way, the whole idea of passing on tagging Brown was to try to find a long-term answer at left tackle, whether that’s Brown or someone else. And all three of these scenarios, as I see it, get you there.

The Chiefs offensive tackle will become a free agent next week after Kansas City reportedly decided not to the use the tag on him :: Eric Hartline/USA TODAY Sports

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From Accent (@AAAcentt): Will Baker Mayfield stay in L.A.?

Accent, I don’t think so. I think Mayfield likely goes to a place where he’ll either compete to start, or where he realistically believes he has a chance at unseating the starter. As long as Matthew Stafford is a Ram, that’s not happening in Los Angeles.

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From Mike Durand (@MikeyD_31): You continuously talk about Mac Jones as if the decision on him being “the guy” and his future with the Patriots has already been made, and that the Patriots/Bill Belichick would like to move on when the time comes. Is there really that small of a chance Mac could be the long-term guy?

Mike, no, I think it’s really up in the air whether he is or not. He showed promise as a rookie. In his second year, he regressed in worse circumstances. And that’s why I’ve said this over and over—I think the Patriots are in a very similar situation with their quarterback to the one the Dolphins were in with Tua Tagovailoa a year ago. Both guys are physically limited, to a degree. Both experienced change through their first two years.

Miami hired Mike McDaniel, traded for Tyreek Hill and signed Terron Armstead in 2022, all in large part to get clarity on Tagovailoa. Because of the quarterback’s continued concussion issues, it didn’t really work out. (It’s still hard to say, definitively, who he is as a quarterback.) But that wasn’t for lack of trying. So it’s on the Patriots now to get some answers on how far Jones can take them.

I will say most NFL folks see Jones’s ceiling as a middle-of-the-pack starter in the NFL (which isn’t bad). And if that’s the case, then doing a second contract for him over the next few years is challenging, like it was to do such deals this year for the Seahawks and Giants.

Really, that’s all I’ve been saying.

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From Pylonpicks (@ThePylonPicks): Considering how many QBs saw the field in ’22, and the likelihood that Stetson Bennett & Hendon Hooker get drafted, will they (plus Purdy) help change the thinking on drafting seasoned college vets vs. guys with pure upside?

Conor Orr wrote a good column on this the other day, and he’s right—if there is a Brock Purdy effect this year, it’s that teams will look for college quarterbacks who’ve had a lot of reps. Purdy threw the ball 1,467 times in college. Hooker (944) and Bennett (924) fall far short of that total, but both were in college forever, and that experience counts.

UCLA’s Dorian Thompson-Robinson (1,359) and TCU’s Max Duggan (1,225) are two well-regarded players who come close to Purdy in experience.

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From Andre (@_Asemota_): What do you think the Colts are doing re: Matt Ryan. Cut him, trade him (S.F. maybe) or keep him to mentor the R1 QB?

Andre, obviously, the Colts have gone through the evaluation of Ryan with Shane Steichen, and so the only reason they’d wait to cut him at this point (assuming they don’t keep him) would be to see whether they can find a trade partner, which seems unlikely.

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From Mike (Chuck Fletcher’s #1 fan) (@Boston__Sucks): Do you believe Jalen Carter will actually fall or is that just reactionary draft stuff in March?

Mike, it’s too early to know. But I heard Warren Sapp’s name invoked enough last week to not rule out a short slide. I do think he’s the best player in the draft, so there’ll be a limit to that slide. And all it takes is one team being comfortable with him for him to go top five still.

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From TFB (@TheSportzNutt): What’s the most likely scenario for Carolina ... Trade to No. 1 ... Trade to 3 ... Or stay at 9 ... And which QB is the apple of their eye?

I don’t know which quarterback they love. But right now, based on cost, I think a trade to the third pick might be more likely for Carolina than No. 1. I bet the Panthers have three they like enough to where they’d be comfortable with that—and I do wholeheartedly believe they’re moving up.

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From Terry Long (@TerryGoLong): Jordan Poyer and Tremaine Edmunds are playing where in 2023?

Terry, this is a guess—no headlines on this one, folks! I’m tempted to put Poyer with the Giants, because of the connections there, but I’ll go with Washington for him. There’s scheme carryover, of course, going from Sean McDermott to Ron Rivera, and the Commanders could use a captain on the back end. And let’s give Tremaine Edmunds to the Patriots, because Bill Belichick loves size at linebacker, and poaching from division rivals.

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From David Kromelow (@dkrom59): How hot is the seat of Broncos GM George Paton??

David, I think Paton is fine, for now. I get the feeling that Sean Payton really liked the idea of working with the Broncos’ sitting GM when he took the job. Could that change over time? Sure. But I think they’re good now.