Packers’ Jordan Love, Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa Capitalize on Timing and Marketplace

Examining the determining factors in each negotiation and judging the strengths and weaknesses of each contract for the players and the teams.

Love's new deal averages $55 million per year. / Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Jordan Love and Tua Tagovailoa, two young quarterbacks that are the futures of the Green Bay Packers and the Miami Dolphins, had their contracts extended last week. Their contracts were completed within hours of each other, by the same agents, with the same contract length. And that length—four-year extension, five-year total contract—was the reason both negotiations lasted into training camp, as I am told both the Packers and Dolphins were trying to achieve longer terms before they eventually relented.

As you know, I try to inform and educate in this space about what is truly important in player contracts, and what is not. I realize I am sometimes shouted out by national media members in pleasing agents, often a key source to them, to present player contracts in the best possible light, meaning the biggest possible number. But while the total amount and annual average are the key numbers in, for example, NBA and MLB contracts, those are fully guaranteed amounts where those numbers are real. In the NFL, with later contract years never fully guaranteed, total amounts of contracts never tell the true story.

I evaluate NFL contracts by looking at factors such as total length and guarantee length, meaning when both the player and/or the team can exit the deal; the player for free agency purposes and the team for financial relief purposes. I also look at year-by-year cash flow in the years that matter (first, second, third and, for quarterbacks, fourth). These are metrics I have used both as an agent and as a team executive in judging a contract’s relative strengths and weaknesses for the team and the player.  With that in mind, let’s examine the new contracts for Love and Tagovailoa.

Length strength

The major sticking point in these deals was never whether the extensions were going to average $53 million a year or $55 million a year or another number. It was not whether the Packers were going to give Love a massive signing bonus, which we knew would happen based on their policy—started by yours truly—of guaranteeing little to nothing after the first year of the contract. It was not whether Tagovailoa would have to accept a lower contract due to not being perceived as a top quarterback. All of those issues were resolved early in the negotiations. The sticking point was the length of the deal.

The Packers and the Dolphins both wanted to follow recent trends of locking up their young quarterbacks for a term that—factoring in existing and extension years—totaled six or seven years (or more). Recent contracts have seen the Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars secure Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence, respectively, for a total of seven years and the Philadelphia Eagles secure Jalen Hurts for six. Prior to that, the Chiefs and Bills secured Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen for eleven and eight years, respectively. As I have said repeatedly, those contracts are “wins” for the team no matter what the numbers. The position’s market value rises every year and those players will not even sniff free agency while the market passes them by or, in some cases, already has passed them by.

Conversely, Dak Prescott, who negotiated a four-year contract with the Cowboys, is the focus of a bandwagon of media now saying what I have been saying since he negotiated that deal: He has the most leverage of any player in the NFL as . Leverage is everything in negotiations, and Prescott has it due to one primary reason: He negotiated a shorter deal.

The Packers and Dolphins wanted longer deals, perhaps six-year extensions added to the existing year on the player’s contract—meaning seven-year deals—or perhaps five-year extensions, meaning six-year deals. The player agents at Athletes First may have wanted three-year extensions, meaning four-year deals such as Prescott’s contract, but probably knew they would lose that battle. Their persistence for four-year extensions, meaning five-year deals, ultimately won. And having the players already in camp as friendly hold-ins helped as well.

While reporting will show that Love’s $55 million a year “ties” the top annual averages of Burrow and Lawrence, Love’s deal is stronger, and he will approach free agency much sooner and much younger than those players. Both Love and Tagovailoa, assuming continued consistent play, will be negotiating another major contract extension with their teams prior to age 30. That is Prescott-sized leverage.

Cash flow

As I did recently in this space compared to other quarterback contracts, I analyze year-by-year cash flow in the years that matter, one through four. Let’s examine how Love and Tua stack up, realizing they have a built-in advantage already due to the shorter length. 

One year cash: With that massive signing bonus of $75 million, Love is still only third in first-year cash flow, with his $79 million trailing Jared Goff ($80.3 million) and Lamar Jackson ($80 million). Tagovailoa is the second-lowest number of recent deals, with his $43 million only ahead of Lawrence’s $39 million.

Two year cash: This is where the numbers flip with Love and Tagovailoa, who will actually make more over two years ($94 million) than Love ($92 million).  Both are well behind Goff ($98 million) and Burrow and Jackson ($111 million) and just behind Mahomes with his contract upgrade from the Chiefs last season ($95 million).

Three year cash: Tagovailoa’s lead over Love expands to $6 million here, as he is making $149 million compared to $143 million over three years. The two are fourth and fifth, respectively, among recent quarterback deals, trailing only Jackson ($155 million), Goff ($153 million) and Mahomes ($152 million).

Four year cash: This is where Tua and Love’s contracts match up: They are both four-year deals worth $186 million, a very strong number trailing only the two outliers—Jackson ($207 million) and Mahomes ($205 million)—and Goff ($193 million). The $186 million number for Tagovailoa–Love five-year deals stands out compared to numbers on seven-year deals for Burrow ($181 million), Herbert ($157 million) and Lawrence ($155 million).

Leverage

I have been asked many questions such as “How could Love make so much after only a half of a season of elevated play?” Or “How can Tua make as much as other better players?” These are the wrong questions.

Discussions about “how good” a player is are for scouts and sports media.  Negotiators do not have these kinds of discussions. They talk about, primarily, two things: marketplace and timing. That determines leverage more than talent. And, as I continue to stress, the key driver for career earnings in the NFL, and all sports, is proximity to free agency.  That is how players truly maximize their income. See, again, Prescott.

One more note here, where the owners have clearly “won.” The Deshaun Watson fully guaranteed five-year contract has turned out to be exactly what NFL owners wanted it to be: an aberration. Watson’s agents were, ironically, the same agents for Love and Tagovailoa, and had great leverage but could not replicate the Watson deal. Highly leveraged NFL quarterbacks had a moment to break the seal, once and for all, to have fully secured contracts such as NBA and MLB players. But it hasn’t happened. Owners brushed back this threat, happy for players to have these splashy numbers, knowing they can “get out” after two or three years. This is an ultimate win for management.

Rodgers and Love sat on the bench for three years before becoming the starting quarterback of the Packers. / Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Packer thoughts

In 2001 as the Packers vice president, I negotiated the then-largest contract in the NFL, a 10-year, $111 million contract for Brett Favre. More than 20 years later, the same team has negotiated two more NFL-record contracts, to two other quarterbacks, in ’22 (Aaron Rodgers) and ’24 (Love). And history repeats itself.

We drafted Rodgers in the first round despite Favre playing at a high level.  Fifteen years later to the day, Green Bay drafted Love in the first round despite Rodgers playing at a high level. Both Rodgers and Love served long three-year apprenticeships before starting. And both Rodgers and Love were handsomely rewarded after their first year as starting quarterback.   

Favre was traded to the Jets in 2008 to allow Rodgers to be the unfettered face of the franchise, while Rodgers was traded to the Jets in ’23 to allow Love to be the unfettered face of the franchise.  

We expect the Packers to draft a first-round quarterback in 2035 and trade Love to the Jets in 2038. I jest (I think).

As I know so well, the Packers have the money, with ample cash reserves to fund a $75 million signing bonus for Love (it will be fully paid out by the end of 2024). And as the person who started a policy to guarantee as little as possible beyond the first year, a massive bonus is necessary for that structure. 

Love and Tagovailoa received strong player contracts. And Prescott will receive an even stronger one. Timing and marketplace are more important to leverage than “how good” players are. Remember that.