Not surprisingly, general manager Brian Gutekunst all but confirmed that the Green Bay Packers and Jordan Love will work on an extension this offseason.
“I think we will go down that road,” Gutekunst told reporters during Thursday’s season-ending press conference. “Certainly, I think that’ll be important for our football team to have some stability there. Jordan and his representation, they’re really good people, so we will start working towards that sometime in the next couple months.”
From Week 11 on last season, Love was one of the most productive quarterbacks in football. During that 10-game stretch, including the playoffs, Love ranked fourth in completion rate at 69.8 percent. His 2,616 passing yards were the most, and he was first in passing touchdowns with 23 while throwing just three interceptions, two of which came against San Francisco.
In the Packers’ three games against Minnesota, Chicago, and Dallas, Love was playing at a particularly elite level, in complete control of the offense from making pre-snap protection adjustments to knowing where to go with the ball when under pressure to his deep ball accuracy.
Love completed nearly 78 percent of his throws in those contests at a whopping 9.8 yards per attempt with eight touchdowns.
“He’s got so much more in front of him,” said Gutekunst. “As good as he played at times this year, he’s got, there’s a very, very high upside which is exciting for him, and again, I think one of the things that you just never know until they get out there and handle all the things that a quarterback has to handle at the line of scrimmage and lead his football team.
“I’ve always talked about how there’s usually a progression there where you go from playing, playing well to winning. He did that in pretty short order in Season 1. Very excited where he can go.”
Prior to the 2023 season, Love signed a one-year extension that runs through the 2024 season. He is currently set to earn $11 million in cash and has a $12.75 million cap hit this season with the contract as is.
Due to when Love’s extension last season was signed, per the CBA, a new extension can’t be agreed to until this coming May.
Ken Ingalls, who independently tracks the Packers’ salary cap situation, recently wrote that he expects Love’s next extension to earn him between $48 million and $52 million per year.
At the high end of $52 million per year, that would make Love the third-highest-paid quarterback in football for 2024, tied with Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson. At $48 million per year, Love would be the sixth-highest-paid quarterback for the upcoming season.
Oftentimes, an extension can be one way to lower a player’s cap hit in the current year. Even though new dollars are being added to the deal, with more years tacked on, there is a longer period of time for the cap charges to be prorated over.
However, in Love’s case, because his 2024 cap hit of $12.75 million is already relatively low for the quarterback position and his extension will infuse quite a bit of new money into the contract, Love’s cap hit for this season will increase.
Ingalls projects that the cap hit will jump into the $15 million to $20 million range depending on how much Love earns and how the deal is structured.
With the Packers currently at $2.8 million over the projected 2024 salary cap, they already have some work to do, but following this extension, additional cap space will be required.
The ultimate goal coming into the 2023 season was to find out if Love could be the Packers’ long-term answer at quarterback. While things were rocky early on, the answer to that question turned into a resounding yes. Love showed that not only is he someone who the Packers can build around, but he has the ability to be one of the best in football, and his contract extension is going to reflect that.
“I think just the way he led our football team,” said Gutekunst when asked what about Love impressed him the most, “through the tough times, through the success, all the challenges that a season kind of brings you, he did a really good job leading those guys.
“I think for a young player in his first year that’s trying to figure it all out, I think that was exceptional.”
