Packer Central

Lazard Beats Rodgers to Jets; Packers Will Get Compensatory Pick

Allen Lazard earned a contract worth $11 million per season from the New York Jets. What will the Green Bay Packers get for a compensatory draft pick?

Bill Huber

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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers lost Allen Lazard to the New York Jets on Tuesday, with the productive, powerhouse receiver beating Aaron Rodgers to the Big Apple by agreeing to a four-year deal worth $44 million.

Jordan Schultz of The Score broke the news.

Last offseason, receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling left the Packers for the Kansas City Chiefs on a three-year, $30 million contract. That $10 million average netted the Packers a fifth-round compensatory pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.

Lazard’s $11 million average should net the Packers at least the same pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, according to Nick Korte, who focuses on compensatory draft picks for OverTheCap.com.

“At $11 million per season, Allen Lazard's contract should currently be valued in the 2024 compensatory formula at the high end of the fifth round,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The compensatory pick the Packers get for his departure could upgrade to the fourth round if Lazard plays a high level of snaps for the Jets in 2023.”

Stolen off Jacksonville’s practice squad late in the 2018 season, Lazard worked his way into a reliable performer. He caught 35 passes for 477 yards and three touchdowns in 2019, 33 passes for 451 yards and three touchdowns in 2020, 40 receptions for 513 yards and eight touchdowns in 2021 and 60 receptions for 788 yards and six touchdowns in 2022.

“It’s definitely a blessing,” Lazard late in the season when discussing his At The Top foundation. “I think all the time about being a mixed-interracial kid from Des Moines, Iowa. To be here playing for the Green Bay Packers, to be able to represent not only my family and friends but the whole state of Iowa and Des Moines.

“More so than that, throughout my career, a lot of people have doubted me. Whether it’s high school, college or even at the beginning stages of my NFL career and even more so now being the new role I’ve assumed. Going back to the At The Top mind-set, it’s helped me prove people wrong and, more than that, prove myself right.”

With the Jets, Lazard will provide a solid complementary receiver to Rookie of the Year Garrett Wilson while relishing his dirty-work role in a reunion with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett.

It’s little reason why Rodgers pushed the Jets to acquire one of his favorite players.

“He’s been doing this for a long time, so this is nothing new,” Rodgers said a few days after Lazard leveled three Dolphins defenders on an Aaron Jones run. “With all due respect to Allen, we’re not surprised by that. We’re not. We’re excited about it, but we’re not surprised.

“He’s been doing that for a long time; I think just about all the time he’s been here. That’s an important part of his game. That’s what got him on the field a bunch when he was a third and fourth guy, and that’s what keeps him on the field and makes us love him so much, because he gives up his body like that, consistently. You want your best players to be your best people, and Allen definitely is one of our best people.”

Without Lazard and with Randall Cobb a free agent, the Packers are incredibly young at receiver with four 2022 draft picks and a practice squad player being the only receivers under contract.

Perhaps a trade of Rodgers would get one of their receivers back in return.

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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.

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