Why it's smart for the Packers to pay Jordan Love despite scary QB market

The Green Bay Packers are about to pay top money to quarterback Jordan Love. This should be a good feeling, since they are locking up a potential franchise passer for years to come.

"Outside of Patrick Mahomes, if we were running an NFL team today, there is nobody on the planet I'd rather have than Jordan Love—period, end of sentence," former New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum recently said on ESPN.

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But that's not a unanimous perception among Packers fans. We have an example below, but it's not an isolated phenomenon. While most are happy with the prospects of securing Jordan Love, there's a sense of regret by paying him so early.

Reasons for concern

The two big reasons for people to be skeptical of paying Jordan Love is his small sample size and how much he can compensate for the money he will get. Those are fair considerations, and it's the downside of the Packers' plan with Love in the first place.

When Green Bay drafted Love in the first round in 2020, Aaron Rodgers had four years left on his deal and was still young enough to play for several seasons. Realistically, Love wouldn't play before his third NFL season, and that would be enough to waste 50% of his rookie contract.

Whether it should be a priority or not it's up for debate, but it's a fact that having a top quarterback on a cheap deal is the ultimate roster-building advantage in today's NFL.

Look at the Houston Texans' situation, for instance. Over the next three seasons, CJ Stroud is slated to make $12.144 million . In the open market, he could easily get $55 million per season, which means the Texans are creating more than $150 million in surplus value over this period. That's obviously a huge advantage, and the front office can use that amount to build a stronger roster around the young quarterback.

Circumstances

Different problems, different solutions. The Texans had the second overall pick in last year's draft, and that's how they were able to access a Stroud type of prospect. Even though he was much better than expected before the draft, it's still virtually impossible to find this type of prospect later in the first round.

And realistically, you would never have a top pick with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback . To make a successful transition plan, the Packers were forced to take a high risk, high reward type of prospect and develop him. It takes time, and it's hard to imagine a scenario where Love would be as good as Stroud early on.

The Packers took Love, developed him, and in his first year as a starter, year four in the NFL, he looked great. That's the most important thing, because he's good, but there is a downside and we have to acknowledge that. Love will never have the advantage of playing on a rookie deal.

Why it still makes sense

Having a great quarterback on a cheap deal is the NFL's best-case scenario — let's exclude Patrick Mahomes for a second, because this is more about sustainable process and less about a clear outlier. The worst-case scenario is what the Cleveland Browns have with Deshaun Watson, paying big money to a player who hasn't been good whatsoever.

These are two clear extremes. Between them, there are shades of gray. But having a good expensive quarterback is still better than having a mediocre cheap quarterback.

Jordan Love is good, can be great, and the Packers don't have a clear path to acquire a good cheap quarterback anytime soon. Therefore, their best path to be a good team is paying the good quarterback they already have.

Surroundings

While Jordan Love does have a small sample size, it was a valuable one. The Packers had a tough financial situation in 2023, because of how they operated cap-wise in the twilight years of Aaron Rodgers. They needed to clear the decks, and the 2023 roster, especially on offense , was extremely inexpensive.

So Love had to go through something that expensive quarterbacks experience: A young group of receivers, sometimes young and cheap pieces on the offensive line. To make things harder, the two most expensive players missed a significant amount of time — left tackle David Bakhtiari played only a game, and running back Aaron Jones missed six games and was limited in several others.

It was just a season, but Jordan Love has already shown he has the ability to elevate a young and inexpensive offensive roster. That gives the Packers confidence he can do that again, and a long time.

How to mitigate the cost

I've already written about what the Packers' priority should be when negotiating Love's extension. A common theme among critics of paying quarterbacks is that Patrick Mahomes has left money on the table, and that's why he's able to win.

First of all, this is not exactly true. Mahomes' agents and the Kansas City Chiefs structured the deal in a way to make sure he would be fairly compensated over time, with rolling guarantees and the ability to extend it multiple times — which they have already done . At the same time, the Chiefs do have a lot of financial flexibility with a longer deal.

And that's what Green Bay should look for. If Love extends for six years, with a contract through 2023, for example, that would give the Packers flexibility to move money around, using the first two to three years of the deal to have more spending power.

Even if Love gets $55 million per season, it doesn't mean his cap hit will be anything close to $55 million anytime soon.

A six-year, $330 million extension would really be a seven-year, $341 million contract including the money he is already slated to make in 2024. That brings his yearly average down to $48.7 million per season, and the team could easily backload the deal, taking advantage of the frequent cap risings to make sure the deal would age well.

Paying Jordan Love is the correct decision for the Packers. If he suddenly becomes bad (which seems very unlikely at this point), everybody will probably get fired anyway and a rebuild would come. The most likely scenario, though, is that he keeps his ascending trajectory, and the sooner he gets a deal, the less expensive it will be.

When you find your quarterback, make sure he's happy and receives the due recognition for his talent and attitude. Because he is your franchise, and there's no way around it.

Related: The quarterback market revolution: Examining the decade's financial landscape in the NFL