Packer Central

Love Agrees to Contract Extension With Packers

The Green Bay Packers and Jordan Love have agreed to a four-year contract extension worth a whopping $55.0 million per season.

Bill Huber

Green Bay Packers QB Jordan Love has millions of reasons to celebrate after signing a contract extension.
Green Bay Packers QB Jordan Love has millions of reasons to celebrate after signing a contract extension. / Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers and Jordan Love have agreed to a four-year, $220 million contract extension that will tie the franchise and the presumptive franchise quarterback together through the 2028 season.

The $55.0 million average ties him with Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence for the highest annual salary in NFL history.

According to reports that were confirmed by Packer Central, Love received a $75 million signing bonus and $155 million guaranteed.

The contract was agreed to after the offense suffered through a fourth consecutive rough day at training camp, which perhaps cranked up the urgency to get the deal over the finish line.

The record-setting price tag, in particular, is breathtaking considering Love’s limited resume. However, the second half of Year 1 as the Packers’ starting quarterback offered some tantalizing possibilities for a franchise steeped in quarterbacking greatness.

During the final eight regular-season games, 33 quarterbacks threw at least 100 passes. From that group, Love ranked:

- First with 17 more touchdown passes than interceptions (Dak Prescott had 16, no one else was better than plus-12).

- First with 2,150 passing yards (Prescott, 2,101).

- First with a 53.8 percent success rate (Brock Purdy, 52.4 percent; defined as 40 percent of required yards on a first-down pass, 60 percent of required yards on second down, 100 percent of required yards on third or fourth down).

- First with one interception (tied with Easton Stick and Tommy DeVito, though Love had 105 more attempts than Stick and 128 more than DeVito).

- Second with a 112.7 passer rating (Purdy, 117.0).

- Second with 18 touchdown passes (Prescott, 19).

- Third with a completion rate of 70.3 percent (Derek Carr, 72.4).

- Ninth with 7.7 yards per attempt (Purdy, 10.1).

“I don’t think there was any one game in particular” that was the turning point, Love said during OTAs. “I think throughout the season, every game I learned so many valuable lessons in every rep I took. I feel like halfway through is when I started getting really comfortable, understanding more where I need to go with the ball, what I need to do out there to put our team in the best position and just limit the mistakes and things like that.”

None of it – not Love’s success, not the team’s rapid rise, not the contract – could have been predicted when Love completed barely 50 percent of his passes with two interceptions in a loss at Pittsburgh on Nov. 12.

At that point, the Packers were 3-6 and Love had thrown an NFL-worst 10 interceptions. However, they were 6-2 down the stretch as Love made the big plays while avoiding the big mistakes.

“I don’t know if anything surprised me,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said at the Scouting Combine, “but it’s always good to see guys come out of adversity because I think that gives you a level of confidence that if you hit it again, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. You’ve just got to keep working and doing the right things.

“It wasn’t surprising but one thing that was really gratifying to see, I think, was how our team responded to him as the leader out there. They genuinely cared for him and wanted to play for him. That’s not something you can teach.”

That’s face-of-the-franchise commentary. With that, the Packers appear to have done the impossible in going from Hall of Famer Brett Favre to future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers to another, at least, quality starting quarterback.

“I think pretty damn good,” Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy said of Love’s debut season as a starter at the NFL Annual Meeting. “I’m really happy for Jordan, the way he played, and not only the level he played at – especially as the season got on, he just seemed to get more and more confident – but his leadership. We saw that throughout the offseason and certainly during the season, so I’m really, really pleased with the way he’s played, and I just think the future is really bright.”

That’s what the Packers are betting on. In 2008, the Packers gave Rodgers his first contract extension just seven games into his first season as a starter. Last year’s one-year extension made that impossible – NFL rules dictate a minimum of one year between extensions – but Love got his extension after a roughly equivalent number of high-level starts.

“Really proud of him,” Gutekunst said at the Combine. “He was very much rewarded for all the work. He’s been put in some tough situations throughout his career. Had lack of opportunity early with the COVID and not having preseason games [as a rookie in 2020] and different things.

“But to go through the tough stretch in October and to see him so steady through all that, and just really lead our team to get better week in and week out, and to see the rewards at the end of the season, I was very excited for him and our football team. For as good as he played, there’s so much more in front of him and just excited for him and where he’s going.”

Again, that’s what the Packers are banking on considering the total money and impact on the salary cap, both of which were driven up due to the overall explosion in quarterback salaries.

Coming off a torn Achilles, Kirk Cousins signed with the Atlanta Falcons for $45 million per season. The Detroit Lions extended Jared Goff for $53 million per season. Earlier on Friday, the Miami Dolphins and Tua Tagovailoa agreed to an extension worth $53.1 million per season.

The real stunner was the Jacksonville Jaguars extending Lawrence for $55 million per season, which tied the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow for the highest average salary in the NFL.

“Every one thing affects another, but I think we’ve learned for a long time, you’ve got to have a quarterback,” Gutekunst said at the Combine. “Everything kind of starts there and you work around it.”

The Lawrence deal, in particular, might have impacted negotiations. As one NFL source said at the time, Love “is much, much better than Lawrence.”

That was evident in the numbers. Love in his debut starting season, even with a mistake-prone first half of the year, finished the regular season with 21 more touchdown passes than interceptions. Lawrence as a third-year starter had only seven more touchdown passes than interceptions.

Should Love be making significantly more per season than legend-in-the-making Patrick Mahomes? Or Buffalo Bills superstar Josh Allen? Of course not. But that’s not how it works. Besides, teams without a high-level quarterback have no chance for real success. Having an expensive quarterback beats having a mediocre quarterback.

The key will be Love continuing to grow alongside his talented group of pass-catchers and, ultimately, carrying more of the load when the Packers can’t afford to keep the whole group together.

The very early signs are promising. No different than how Love tuned out all the noise following the trade of Rodgers, he put his nose down and worked through the offseason. Even as contract negotiations could have served as a distraction, Love was focused on football. At one point after a practice in minicamp, six consecutive questions about his contract elicited responses totaling 15 words.

On the field, he was decisive and efficient during OTAs and minicamp. He wasn’t greedy. He wasn’t looking to scramble at a moment’s notice. Generally, the ball was delivered on time and on target.

Put simply, he is miles ahead of where he was at this time last year, when perhaps no one could have forecasted this day happening.

“Same guy. That’s the best thing about Jordan,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said. “He comes into work every day. He’s the same guy and just ready to be the best player that he can be and help the team be the best that they can be, so he never wavers from that and it’s fun to watch.”

Now that Love is being paid like a superstar quarterback, the expectation is that he’ll play like a superstar quarterback. Superstar quarterbacks don’t just throw touchdown passes. They win games. Big games.

The Packers haven’t won the Super Bowl in 13 years.

Championships – plural – are the mission.

“I just think you feel the confidence from him, the way he projects himself in front of the team, and that’s what you expect,” coach Matt LaFleur said during OTAs. “You expect guys to continue to push and get better and better and better. The command that he has of the offense [has improved].

“I know the guys, they all respect the hell out of him, just in terms of who he is as a man and the work he puts in. He’s so consistent. He shows up every day with a great attitude and just being one of the guys.”

More Green Bay Packers Training Camp News

Highlights from Practice 4 | Expectations for Kenny Clark include dinner | Unofficial depth chart | Highlights from Practice 3 | Big lineup change | The biggest battle of camp | Young but experienced | Highlights from Practice 2 | Jacob Eason arrives | Big change on depth chart | Highlights from Practice 1 

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.