Go Pack Go!

The Pack just about beat the 9er’s too and could have been in the SB. The Lion should also be at the top of the division unless they get hit with an injury bug. It will be interesting to see how Williams plays in Chicago this year. I watched several of his college games last year and I thought he was way overrated. Just my opinion but I think the Vikings could be in trouble because of their drafting. Getting good players in the later rounds really helps the teams with cheap contracts. The Viking gave up a lot to move up in the draft this year, and don’t have a lot of draft capital next year. It’s usually better to have more chance, 7-11 draft picks to make the team, than relying on only 3-5 players. Look at how many first round draft picks never work out or even get a second contract, and trying to build a team with high priced veteran players usually never works out for long term success.

I dont like comparing Rodgers and Love but people forget that the Packers gave Rodger’s a contract extension after just a few games of being a starter. Now I do think it was a slightly over pay but the next QB that signs his extension will pass Love’s.

Tlazer wrote:

The Pack just about beat the 9er’s too and could have been in the SB. The Lion should also be at the top of the division unless they get hit with an injury bug. It will be interesting to see how Williams plays in Chicago this year. I watched several of his college games last year and I thought he was way overrated. Just my opinion but I think the Vikings could be in trouble because of their drafting. Getting good players in the later rounds really helps the teams with cheap contracts. The Viking gave up a lot to move up in the draft this year, and don’t have a lot of draft capital next year. It’s usually better to have more chance, 7-11 draft picks to make the team, than relying on only 3-5 players. Look at how many first round draft picks never work out or even get a second contract, and trying to build a team with high priced veteran players usually never works out for long term success.

Vikes actually didn’t give up much at all.
Whether JJ is the guy or not is the question. They also have 159$ million in cap space starting next year.

Comes down to if JJ is legit or not.

Loves contract is just a formality of when he signed his contract compared to other starting QB’s. Each time someone signs it looks like a massive overpay and it probably is but can’t do much about it as it is harder to find another one.

6 months ago Cousins was being roasted here for wanting $40+ million. Nobody cares what a quarterback makes. If he’s a bum he gets roasted. If he’s great it’s what he’s paid to be.

If he’s a asshat he goes to the Jets. Life goes on.

If he’s a asshat he goes to the Jets. Life goes on.
LOL, that’s a good one.

As far as having $159M cap space might sound good, you have to remember that is only for one year, which is fine if your signing some veteran players to a 1 year contract trying to win a SB. Will you have the cap space in the following years to keep those veteran players at a larger contract? Currently I believe the Vikings have a 1st round and 2 5th round picks next year. Doesn’t leave you with much to build a roster, when you need some cheap rookie contracts on your team. Look at how many good players that are picked after the 1st round, then consider probably half the 1st round pick are flops or never reach their potential to where they were drafted.

2026 90 million
2027 180 million

My 2025 was pre Darrisaw and JJ signings they have 55 million in 2025 now.

So plenty of money which was the opposite when they had Cousins. They were always up against it and could not improve on the defensive side of the ball. No point in going past 3 years cap wise in NFL.

If you are curious the pack have
16 million in 2025
28 million in 2026

Which is lowest in the division by a wide margin.

Point being is they have other ways to improve the team outside of draft.
Whether they hit on the QB this year is the question.

Pack seemed to have found their guy. Only time will tell.

Tlazer wrote:

Will you have the cap space in the following years to keep those veteran players at a larger contract? Currently I believe the Vikings have a 1st round and 2 5th round picks next year. Doesn’t leave you with much to build a roster, when you need some cheap rookie contracts on your team.

Well after this offseason they have all their core players locked up long term, one benefit of Kwesi’s terrible initial draft. It will be 4 years until they need to worry about McCarthy, and I hope more than anything we have that problem for the first time in my life. And while there are lots of late or undrafted guys that hit, the % goes down drastically once you get past the 1st 3 rounds. Spielman loved stacking late round picks, and that didn’t work out so well for him or the team.

BigWerm wrote:

That is what kept the Lion sucking all those years even with picking at the top of the draft, was poor drafting. That’s why good drafting is so important and why Spielman was let go. You need young starting talent on the team playing on rookie salaries so you can afford to pay a few stars the big bucks. You can’t pay everyone big bucks (assuming that starting players on their 2nd contract are being paid more than the rookies) because of the salary cap. That is why I hope they never get rid of the salary cap, since I could see people like Jerry Jones buying a team every year to win the SB. Like you said the hit rate on rounds 4-7 are low, so that is why next year with the Vikings only having 3 draft picks could come up to bite them a few years down the road IMO.

If you really think the Vikings will have those 3 drafts picks by the 2025 draft, you are very mistaken.
We know they’ll have comp picks coming. Maybe trading down out of 1st.
Whatever they do it will be more than 3 in 2025.

Never said that they wouldn’t make trades or use future draft picks for more draft picks in 2025. All I stated was right now they have currently only 3 draft picks next year.

Dutchboy wrote:

If he’s a asshat he goes to the Jets. Life goes on.

…and shortly thereafter goes to the Vikings. Life goes on.

all of the eye-raising about contracts for star players overlooks the underlying fact that they’re paid as employees who contribute to the team’s revenue. and NFL revenue is very, very large indeed.

the NFL itself earned ~$20B last year, with tv-related money being the most.
they gave $400M of that to every team. in 1 year.
individually the Packers were 10th in the NFL for revenue last year at $577M.

but…Green Bay is 2nd most in dead cap money at ~$50M. ironically it’s the Vikings who are carrying the most at $57M. the good news for Green Bay is that they’ve gotten so much younger as a team that even with Love’s new contract they can weather it in 2024 and then their cap situation will clean up starting in 2025 when they’ll need to start making some decisions.

pay the QBs, they’re worth it, and everyone will be okay.

Michael C. Winther wrote:

pay the QBs, they’re worth it, and everyone will be okay.

Except when they are Daniel Jones. Which is a definite possibility for 1 or 2 out of Love/Lawrence/Tua. The Packers put themselves in this situation by only giving him 1 year at the helm, so they had to pay him. But it definitely could backfire on them or any number of teams.

I think the Pack overpaid for Love, but there are a ton of overpaid players these days so he isnt alone. He needs some help around him in order to hopefully see what he actually can do, but he did have a decent season last year.

It’s gotten to the point where if you’re a starting QB and the next one up for a contract you’re likely to be the next highest-paid QB, until the next starting QB signs their contract. Maybe not for some of the bottom 5-10 QB’s, but for anyone qualifying as a guy who has the starting QB spot, that’s gonna be the case. Years ago you wouldn’t see this happening with Love or even a guy like Trevor Lawrence, but it’s to the point where there are maybe 20-25 men on this earth who can be decent starting NFL QB’s, and that rarity gets them paid.

It can and likely will cripple teams financially so the GM’s have big decisions to make, timing the QB contracts and the guaranteed money/cap hits with other big contracts on their team. Front-load a few contracts here, back-load a few there, it’s a constant puzzle. I do wonder if there will come a day where enough teams get ruined by QB eating up such a huge chunk of their contract that they say they’ve had enough and try something else. It’s already happened in a way with teams placing such a high value on a top 1 or 2 QB in a draft class to try and win with a cheap QB so they can pay others.

Dan wrote:

I do wonder if there will come a day where enough teams get ruined by QB eating up such a huge chunk of their contract that they say they’ve had enough and try something else. It’s already happened in a way with teams placing such a high value on a top 1 or 2 QB in a draft class to try and win with a cheap QB so they can pay others.

Unless something happens to level off or even a decline in revenue I don’t think it will. The reason these haven’t bit anyone TOO bad yet, is the salary cap keeps jumping up, so locking in a QB at todays market looks good moving forward as the pie grows. And they aren’t guaranteed beyond 3-4 years usually, so even Daniel Jones (assuming he continues to suck) deal can be forgotten and off the books after 2025.

BigWerm wrote:

Unless something happens to level off or even a decline in revenue I don’t think it will. The reason these haven’t bit anyone TOO bad yet, is the salary cap keeps jumping up, so locking in a QB at todays market looks good moving forward as the pie grows.

THIS.

two interesting trends to watch.
1) how the NFL continues to grow TV and streaming revenue
2) prevalence/percentage of guaranteed money in a violent sport

on the first one, i hope people are prepared for the day when all of the playoff games and even the Super Bowl are on a premium streaming network rather than standard TV. not now, maybe not in 3 years, but it’s coming.

on the second, a career-ending injury early in a QB’s guaranteed contract will crash a team harder than managing cap issues and the money itself for an underperforming player who stays on the field.

on the second, a career-ending injury early in a QB’s guaranteed contract will crash a team harder than managing cap issues and the money itself for an underperforming player who stays on the field.

Didn’t really crash the Eagles.

Not many franchise QB’s have career ending injuries these days with how the rules protect them.

CaptainMusky wrote:

I think the Pack overpaid for Love, but there are a ton of overpaid players these days so he isnt alone. He needs some help around him in order to hopefully see what he actually can do, but he did have a decent season last year.

I don’t believe they overpaid him, unless he gets career ending injury or totally regresses and isn’t a starting level QB due to the guaranteed money he’s owed. To me it’s a good contract for the Pack if he’s an average to above average QB and a great contract if he turns into a franchise QB. His cap numbers in “24” is $21M, $30M in “25”, and $36M in “26”. Kirk Cousin’s cap hit for Atlanta is $25M in “24” and $40M in “25”, so when you look at that contract for example it’s hard to say that Love is overpaid. I think his cap numbers for the next 3 years will allow the Pack the flexibility to keep key players signed and in GB.

2024 NFL QB Cap Hits:

1. Deshaun Watson – 63.7 million
2. Dak Prescott – 55 million
3. Kyler Murray – 49 million
4. Daniel Jones – 47.8 million

…

13. Jordan Love – 20.7 million

2025 NFL QB Cap Hits:

1. Patrick Mahomes – 66 million
2. Deshaun Watson – 63.9 million
3. Josh Allen – 60.7 million
4. Tua Tagovaiola – 59.4 million
5. Matt Stafford – 53.6 million
6. Derek Carr – 51.4 million

…

17. Jordan Love – 29.7 million

2026 NFL QB Cap Hits:

1. Lamar Jackson – 74.6 million
2. Jared Goff – 69.6 million
3. Patrick Mahomes – 68.6 million
4. Deshaun Watson – 63.9 million
5. Tua Tagovailoa – 63.4 million
6. Derek Carr – 61.4 million
7. Daniel Jones – 58.6 million

…

15. Jordan Love – 36.1 million

Cap hits are fine, but do you really think he is worthy of having the highest paid contract in history? I certainly do not.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Cap hits are fine, but do you really think he is worthy of having the highest paid contract in history? I certainly do not.

That’s what I was getting at earlier too. Sample size just isn’t big enough yet.

But, they don’t have a choice either. Not like there’s anyone else better out there instead.

Which brings up another point here on backup QBs…

To say they “overpaid” for Love is crazy in my opinion.

By all means, he still could be a bust or suffer a major injury. Nobody can predict the future, but taking the youngest roster in the league to where he did the last half of the season essentially forced the organization’s hand. I don’t think he’s Mahomes or Rodgers in their primes, but I think he’s going to be a long term top 10-15 qb in the league. To lock him up for the next 3 seasons as the 13th, 17th, and 15th largest cap hit at the QB position respectively was a no brainer. It creates a nice window. Now it’s all on player development with the young roster and dodging the injury bug the next few years for the Cheese.

Cap hit is what matters. The feeling of what someone “deserves” with regards to all the extra bonuses and cash is irrelevant to me. The NFL and owners are oozing cash with arguably the most successful legal monopoly of current times. The guys that play are going to get their cut. It seems like “too much” but it’s a tiny sliver of pie compared to the owners.

Those numbers make me wanna barf. At 45 miliion that would be 44k a minute if they played every second of every game. Obviously offense only plays half the time so they make more then most people make all year in 1 minute which is about 1.5 plays.

JEREMY wrote:

Those numbers make me wanna barf. At 45 miliion that would be 44k a minute if they played every second of every game. Obviously offense only plays half the time so they make more then most people make all year in 1 minute which is about 1.5 plays.

Our own fault. How many show up at work with a Packers t-shirt/jersey/hat/coffee mug, etc., and line the pockets of the NFL owners and players?

Jordan Love should be gifting his agent 50% for stealing that kind of money from the GB FO. I would have told him to play out the year or find a trade. And i thought the Vikings GM was a pushover.

Brad Dimond wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JEREMY wrote:</div>
Those numbers make me wanna barf. At 45 miliion that would be 44k a minute if they played every second of every game. Obviously offense only plays half the time so they make more then most people make all year in 1 minute which is about 1.5 plays.

Our own fault. How many show up at work with a Packers t-shirt/jersey/hat/coffee mug, etc., and line the pockets of the NFL owners and players?

Don’t forget, a lot of their money comes from TV. So the best thing to do is don’t watch any football on TV along with stop going to games and buying all the merchandise.

buckybadger wrote:

2024 NFL QB Cap Hits:

He signed an extension, so his 2024 # is off of his previous contract. And his cap hit in 2027 is $42M and 2028 is $72M, which I assume you left out since it will likely be reworked by then. But with $160M guaranteed he is the QB for the next 3 years guaranteed, and if he has some level of success they will need to redo his deal again prior to 2027 as they cannot have the 2028 $72M Cap hit happen, but don’t think that he won’t get that money too. Personally I think cap hit is not a good thing to judge it off of, as it will likely change depending on his play or their overall cap situation, with them moving money up or back, just as anyone on your list to compare too has done.

Tlazer wrote:

Don’t forget, a lot of their money comes from TV.

Merchandise and ticket sales represent a fraction of the money they make on TV deals from a pure mathematical stand point. Stadiums could be empty or mostly empty (like they were in 2020 – 2021) and the NFL would still make a killing because most of their revenue comes from people watching it on television.

Amazon paid what, a billion dollars per season to exclusively provide TNF. How much does a 30 second commerical cost for the Super Bowl? That all goes right to the NFL.