Aaron Jones is off the board. On Sunday, the Packers agreed to a four-year, $48MM deal with their star running back (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport). The deal ties Jones to Green Bay through the 2024 season and comes with a $13MM signing bonus. 
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Jones could have gone into free agency without any restrictions and cashed in big. However, the current climate left a lot of uncertainty. With this deal, Jones and agent Drew Rosenhaus have opted for security over upside, though Jones has plenty of dollars coming his way.
The franchise tag would have given Jones around $9MM. Instead, he’s getting an average of $12MM/year with more guaranteed money than he was offered in last year’s round of talks. It took a little longer, but Jones got his big pay day just like 2017 running back draftees Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara, Dalvin Cook, and Joe Mixon. Before the deal, the Dolphins were heavily connected to Jones. Now, they’ll have to look elsewhere for help.
Jones has averaged over 1,500 yards from scrimmage and 15 TDs over the past two seasons, positioning him as one of the best running backs in the NFL. Historically, teams have been reluctant to shell out big bucks and guaranteed years to RBs, but Jones has proven his value multiple times over.
In three of his four NFL campaigns, Jones has averaged 5.5 yards per carry. While he missed the Pro Bowl in 2019, he led the NFL with 19 touchdowns. There was no oversight last year as Jones turned in his second straight 1,000-yard season. He averaged a career-high 78.4 yards per game in 2020 and the Packers will be counting on more of the same in 2021, especially with Jamaal Williams on track for the open market.
This is one of the more active day before free agency days I’ve seen
The Packers are so weird
No smart!
Yup. They played it well. Kept another one of their star FA’s.
I love me some Aaron Jones. It just makes last year’s draft even weirder, that’s all.
Jones and Dillon will be a great 1-2 combo!
Indeed…this is awesome news! Talk about “thunder and lightning”!
With both Jones and Williams going into the last year of their contracts, it made sense to draft a rb. We can debate who they took, what round, and all that til the cows come home, but at the time I don’t think they expected either AJ or JW to stick around.
The 1st round pick on the other hand, there just isn’t a logical explanation for in my opinion.
Wait until they have Jones and Dillon in the same backfield.
If the D plays an 8 man front, Jones slides out and probably gets covered by a LB.
If the D stays in base formation, hand off to Jones or Dillon.
And they have a veteran HOF QB making these adjustments.
I’m not completely sold on Dillon. He really only had the 1 breakout game, and I don’t know if his pass catching or protection will ever get close to what Williams offered.
Your specific scenario sounds great, but it doesn’t offer as much flexibility in changing the play, I don’t think.
He was inactive for 5 games I think because of Covid. 3rd string RB’s don’t get much playing time anyway Next year he’ll break out. This offense will be explosive again. Now they just need a RT
Great to see Aaron Jones back with the Pack. Some Miami fans already had him in as their new running back. Not gonna happen. LOL.
Depends on the dolphin fan, I guess. I prefer to draft a running back this year.
I can understand that completely but if you saw how well AJ performed so far with the Packers you would be glad to have him back as a Packer fan.
As a dolphins fan I am quite pleased he resigned. Not that he isn’t good, I just think they can spend on other spots and can fill RB in the draft. Not as much development time needed for rbs
Miami Would Never pay 12M a yr on a RB. If they were offering it, he would have taken it. This is just him following the money. No disrespect.
So you think he would have left the Packers for the Dolphins if both offered the same money? I respectfully disagree, sir
Yes he would. No tax in the state of Florida, which means more money….if more money wouldn’t land him in Miami, then why was Miami even mentioned???
He’s the most overrated rb in football. He’s the product of a really good o line and his stats don’t tell the full story, he’ll have 4 insane games and 10 where he’s nonexistent.
Hahahaha. Two 1,000 yard seasons and 25 Touchdowns. What a bum!
He’s not a bum he’s good. Hes just not as good as advertised
Not as good? Do you know how many running backs has the average yards per carry he does for his career the last 5 years. Only 2 other backs. Goofy
Well not every back that goes to GB has that same success so that’s not totally true. Plus the Pack don’t use him enough, most games he doesn’t get 20 touches and will just be off the field for multiple drives at a time. As soon as he starts heating up they’ll yank him.
despicable_you –
Maybe try watching some football. And if you have been watching, then there’s just no helping you and you’re just clueless
They sure are taking an about face. Let people go and Jordan love era beginning. One mvp season later and it’s overpay everyone to keep Rodgers happy
Love couldn’t beat out Tim Boyle for the backup role. That tends to focus you on making sure Rodgers is happy and on board with your personnel decisions.
Love didn’t have a full training camp and zero preseason games to try and get ready. Boyle has been around. It had nothing to do with beating out Boyle.
12 million annually is a good deal for both. Jones gets a nice payday and stays where he is comfortable and the Packers get his prime years for slightly less than what other top end RB are signing for. I guess Dolphins can target Jamaal Williams now.
Ehhh, I’m not sure how I feel about this. Jones is good, but Linsley will be the real loss here. I know Jenkins can move inside, but that creates the need to hit at guard again in addition to Jenkins having to match Linsley. $12 million is a good bit for a running back on a team with cap restraints. Jones will be good, but I don’t know if this deal would have been better than trying to keep Linsley and replacing Jones instead.
Move Jenkins to Center and start Jon Runyan at guard. I don’t think the drop off will be as bad as people think, especially if they can get another guard in the middle rounds or for cheap in free agency (like they did with Wagner last year)
Some people don’t pay attention. GB develops OL and WR. Continuously. You have to develop some positions from within in a salary cap era. They’ve proven capable of both of those positions with regularity.
Apparently you dont pay attention either. Adams is the only good WR they have currently. No one else has stepped up opposite him. Its why their 2020 draft class makes no sense. Plenty of top WRs available and they take a qb and rb with their first two picks?????
That’s not exactly the case. Lazard and Scantling both are legitimate NFL wide receivers. Problem is they are #3 and #4 receivers. The Packers need a solid #2 guy to pair with Adams
Jones is a key player for the Packers, thus it was necessary to overpay a touch. But if the Packers really want to take the final step they need to be spending their money on some better receivers.
No surprise here. If Rodgers were to get injured and the Packers had to transition to Love they would need a solid run game as a fallback option and Jones would give them that.
Waste of money. Old and can’t win the big games anymore.
Jones is old? What are you even talking about? And if you are referring to Rodgers, he most likely would have won the big games last year if the Packers GM wasn’t a complete moron on draft day last year and had drafted a legit #2 receiver and some defense up the middle instead of a worthless QB project who will never play for the team in the 1st round and yet another unneeded TE in the 3rd round. By the way, Tom Brady is old and he’s still pretty good, in case you haven’t noticed
Wonder what guarantees are and cap hit per year.
He got his money good for him…. now I can see him blowing out his knee in the exhibition season
I remember when the pack gave Dorsey Levens a mass contract extension before he hit free agency late 90’s 2000. then proceeded to tear his Achilles pre season. Ahman Green took over after that and thrived. This is very similar to 20 yrs ago.
He is very under rated the numbers show all the great things he has done…but what many don’t realize is his presence on the field has a huge ripple effect…defenses always have to have someone shadowing him which means less pressure on rodgers and when he moves in formation it creates holes that can be exploited…not to mention the explosive plays he creates forces the de to play cautious slows them down really its the lil things that arent noticed that makes him so valueable..we all know the packers are generally tight pocketed so if they are paying a running back that money u know they realize how important he is
Justme –
Well said…100% spot on!
im holding out hope that the pack can still bring in a top WR FA
Thanks KCJ…screwball that would be nice but think pretty much near impossible if they could find that kind of cash im sure they would resign linsley…plus they have work left to do to clear space to cover jones and cap for the draft and the season
Depends how much of the money is actually guaranteed but now this makes last year’s draft even more suspect
Last years draft is suspect regardless, but I don’t think Dillon is the reason. Having two RB’s is important and they are both different styles. Paying two RB’s is an issue. Not to mention Jones is part RB part WR.