The Green Bay Packers are in the midst of a tailspin the NFL hasn’t seen in a long time. After starting 3-1 this season, they have lost five straight, including a 15-9 loss to the Detroit Lions. If that weren’t enough, the injuries are piling up at a frightening rate. Seventeen names appeared on the injury report this week, including Aaron Rodgers, David Bakhtiari, De’Vondre Campbell, Rasul Douglas, Elgton Jenkins, Eric Stokes and Sammy Watkins. That doesn’t include setter Rashan Gary, who tore his anterior cruciate ligament in Detroit.
This team is horribly screwed up and about to face the Dallas Cowboys. Their offense can’t score and the defense is losing starters left and right. They could drop to 3-7 by next Monday, nearly killing their playoff hopes in a year everyone expected them to compete for a Super Bowl. Yet somehow it gets even worse. In his latest column on Rodgers’ impending pay rise, ESPN’s Rob Demosky brought it all to light. Unless the quarterback retires, the team faces a lose-lose situation in 2023 if they want to move on.
Cutting it is out of the question.
This is the least likely scenario, especially before June 1, as they would still have to pay Rodgers the option bonus and his 2023 base salary.
They would also it takes more than 99 million dollars of dead money on their 2023 course, which is untenable. Waiting until after June 1 would actually provide a net saving of $50,000 on the salary cap, although the dead money hit would be over $31.5 million in 2023 and more than double in 2024.
It would also mean that the Packers would receive no compensation (e.g. draft picks) if Rodgers were to play for another team after his release.
No problem, right? They can simply entertain teams during business negotiations. Certainly, someone will want to take the future Hall of Famer. No. Even that is nearly impossible at this point.
A source familiar with the contract believes the best way to trade Rodgers, particularly before June 1, would be for a player with a similar contract due to all the dead money involved and suggested that a player like Russell Wilson would fit this description.
“The only real way to trade him before June 1 is for another player with a bad contract,” the source said. “And that won’t happen.”
The Green Bay Packers won’t get much help in the upcoming offseason.
Current projections put them just under $4 million in salary cap space. It’s a problem with the number of key free agents they have to juggle, like Adrian Amos, Allen Lazard, Robert Tonyan and Jenkins. They’ll have to do a lot of creative maneuvering to find enough money to keep most of these guys. Never mind trying to spend on outside free agents. Their saving grace alone could be aspiring enough to earn a top 10.
Everything seemed so obvious to them last offseason. Rodgers had a second consecutive MVP year. Even at 39, there was no reason to think he would decline, even after the Green Bay Packers were forced to trade star receiver Davante Adams. It was a serious miscalculation. Now Rodgers is playing the worst football of his career (14 TDs to 7 INTs), approaching his 40th birthday and carrying a bloated contract the team cannot escape.
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