Green Bay Packers News & Rumors

Minor NFL Transactions: 8/6/24

Today’s minor moves:

Arizona Cardinals

Baltimore Ravens

Buffalo Bills

Cleveland Browns

Dallas Cowboys

Denver Broncos

Green Bay Packers

  • Signed: DE Zach Morton

Las Vegas Raiders

  • Signed: WR Dax Milne
  • Waived/injured: DT Tomari Fox

Los Angeles Chargers

  • Signed: QB Luis Perez
  • Waived: LB Savion Jackson

Los Angeles Rams

New Orleans Saints

New York Giants

San Francisco 49ers

Seattle Seahawks

Washington Commanders

CeeDee Lamb isn’t usually mentioned in this type of post, but the transaction involving the wideout was simply procedural. As ESPN’s Todd Archer notes, placing Lamb on the reserve/did not report list opens up a roster spot for the Cowboys, something that was necessary after the team signed three players today. This move doesn’t impact negotiations, and Lamb can be activated once he returns to practice. Lamb continues to holdout while he waits for a new deal, but the front office is working hard to get him back in the building.

Justin Herbert‘s recent foot injury necessitated some extra depth at the position. The team ended up opting for Luis Perez, who led the UFL last season in completions (225), passing yards (2,309), and touchdowns (18). Perez will soak up some temporary snaps alongside Easton Stick, Max Duggan, and UDFA Casey Bauman.

Minor NFL Transactions: 8/5/24

Today’s minor moves:

Arizona Cardinals

Buffalo Bills

Carolina Panthers

Cleveland Browns

Green Bay Packers

Houston Texans

Indianapolis Colts

Jacksonville Jaguars

Las Vegas Raiders

New England Patriots

New Orleans Saints

  • Signed: LB Mike Rose

New York Giants

Philadelphia Eagles

  • Waived: OL Jason Poe

Seattle Seahawks

Packers To Host Jonathan Garibay; Latest On Team’s K Competition

The Packers recently waived rookie kicker James Turner. That made the team’s competition at that position a two-man battle instead of three, with incumbent Anders Carlson and free agent signing Greg Joseph remaining in place.

As those two continue to compete for a roster spot, though, Green Bay will still check in on other options. The team is set to bring in Jonathan Garibay for a workout, ESPN’s Rob Demovsky reports. Garibay previously had a deal with the Cowboys in 2022, but he did not see any regular season game action. The Texas Tech product spent last season in the UFL, missing only one of his kicks.

That success could give him the opportunity to compete with Joseph and Carlson. The latter received a vote of confidence from Green Bay in his rookie season, but inconsistency down the stretch and in the playoffs made it clear he would need to fend off other kickers in 2024. Carlson, 26, has not been the top producer to date in training camp, as noted by Matt Schneidman of The Athletic (subscription required). Joseph has been more accurate on his summer attempts, but no final call needs to be made for quite some time.

“There’s competitive position battles going on throughout the team and we’re going to have constant conversation about it,” special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia said of where things stand with the kickers (via Schneidman), “and we’ll sit down collectively and make a decision when the time comes.”

Three years remain on Carlson’s rookie deal, whereas Joseph signed a one-year contract following the end of his Vikings tenure. The 30-year-old has a career accuracy of 82.6% on field goals and 90.1% on extra points, and continuing his strong summer during the preseason will help his chances of landing the job in Green Bay. Without any guarantees on his deal, though, Joseph will not have any assurances in the coming weeks. Garibay’s performance – if his workout translates to a contract – will be worth watching as well.

Minor NFL Transactions: 7/30/24

Today’s minor moves:

Atlanta Falcons

  • Waived: WR Isaiah Wooden
  • Placed on reserve/retired list: OT Tyler Vrabel

Baltimore Ravens

Buffalo Bills

  • Waived: LB Shayne Simon

Carolina Panthers

Green Bay Packers

Indianapolis Colts

  • Signed: DE Levi Bell

Jacksonville Jaguars

Pittsburgh Steelers

Marquez Callaway will once again hit free agency after having bounced around the NFL last season. The wideout spent time with the Broncos, Raiders, Saints (second stint) during the 2023 campaign. He caught on with the Steelers via a reserve/futures contract in January but ultimately lasted only a few days into training camp.

The former UDFA had a breakout campaign as a sophomore in New Orleans, finishing the 2021 season with 46 catches for 698 yards and six touchdowns. He saw a reduced role in 2022 before hitting the free agency carousel in 2023.

Broncos, Cardinals, Giants, Texans Pursued RB Josh Jacobs

As the 2023 offseason foreshadowed, Josh Jacobs departed the Raiders in free agency. The former rushing champion inked a four-year, $48MM deal with the Packers this spring, a move he long contemplated.

[RELATED: Raiders Did Not Discuss New Deal With Jacobs Prior To Departure]

When addressing his decision to sign in Green Bay, Jacobs noted (via Ryan Wood of the Green Bay Press-Gazette) he turned down more lucrative offers from other interested parties. He added that roughly one dozen teams showed different levels of interest in the lead-in to free agency. Joining a contending team helped make Jacobs’ decision easier, though.

“I didn’t want to go to a team where I felt like I wanted to be in a rebuilding situation,” the 26-year-old said. “I didn’t want to go to a team where I felt like I couldn’t come in and immediately make an impact and be able to be one of the factors to get over the hump.”

Jacobs said his suitors included the Texans, Giants, Broncos and Cardinals. Those teams offered varying potential in terms of Super Bowl contention in the immediate future, and the former first-rounder noted he spent much of the 2023 campaign observing the Packers’ development on offense. Green Bay’s offer was $3-$4MM lower than ones made by other teams, he said, but familiarity was another factor working in the Packers’ favor in this situation.

Jacobs contacted Rich Bisaccia while exploring the possibility of a Green Bay deal. The latter served as special teams coordinator (and, briefly, interim head coach) of the Raiders before taking charge of the Packers’ special teams in 2022. Bisaccia, along with former Raiders teammate Keisean Nixon and ex-college teammate Xavier McKinney represent familiar faces Jacobs will be reuniting with on his new team. Given the Packers’ decision to move on from Aaron Jones, he will also face heavy expectations as the their undisputed lead back.

“I wanted to be a Raider,” Jacobs added. “Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to be with one team, finish my career with one team… So coming into that [2023] season, everything felt weird. I felt like I’m going to have this crazy year, and you don’t even want me here. So the writing was already on the wall. Obviously, I still tried to come in and put my best foot forward, but I knew it was coming toward that time.”

Jacobs was limited to 13 games last season, and he had career lows across the board. As expected, Vegas moved on with Zamir White as their lead back while adding veteran Alexander Mattison as a backup. That tandem will be much more cost-effective than a RB room led by Jacobs would have been, but Green Bay’s run to the NFC divisional round will lead to expectations of a strong 2024 performance. It will be interesting to see how he fares with his new team and whether or not his free agent decision proves to be a sound one.

Matt LaFleur, Brian Gutekunst Address Packers’ Jordan Love Extension

Contractually speaking, it is difficult to find a direct comp to Jordan Love‘s climb. The Packers did extend Aaron Rodgers midway through his first season as a starter, but the team did not need to give its Brett Favre successor a contract that checked in first or even second in terms of average annual value in 2008. They did reach the NFL’s AAV ceiling for Love, and the Rodgers replacement’s four-year, $220MM extension — which the parties finalized Friday night — is now official.

While Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence are tied to $55MM-per-year deals like Love now is, the Bengals and Jaguars QBs are on five-year contracts. Negotiating in a contract year — whereas Burrow, Lawrence and Justin Herbert had two years left on their rookie deals — Love managed the $55MM AAV over a four-year contract, topping where the Dolphins went for Tua Tagovailoa earlier Friday. After contract structure was believed to loom as this negotiation’s final hurdle, Love secured favorable terms and will return to practice after a brief hold-in.

The Packers guaranteed Love $100.8MM at signing, with Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio noting the practical guarantee in this contract is $140.3MM. Against guarantees beyond Year 1 for non-quarterbacks, the Packers guaranteed Love’s 2025 base salary ($11.9MM) and part of his 2026 base ($49.9MM). The team guaranteed $10.9MM of that 2026 figure at signing, with the rest of that money shifting from an injury guarantee to a full guarantee in March 2025. Love will be a Packer by that March date, raising the practical guarantee to that $140.3MM point.

This contract does include a record-setting signing bonus of $75MM. Love will see that money in three 2024 installments, collecting the bonus — which will be used to spread out the QB’s cap hits — by December, Florio adds. The Packers are also using a rolling guarantee structure for Love’s 2027 payout. Of Love’s $41.9MM 2027 base salary, $20MM is guaranteed for injury at signing and becomes fully guaranteed on Day 5 of the 2026 league year.

Further spreading out Love’s cap hits, Florio indicates $39.5MM of Love’s 2026 base salary and $31.5MM of his 2027 base will convert to option bonuses in those years. After just two seasons, Love’s full guarantee balloons to $160.3MM. If the Packers cut Love in 2027, Florio adds the $20MM injury guarantee includes offset language.

Addressing the contract Saturday morning, Matt LaFleur said (via the Green Bay Press-Gazette’s Ryan Wood) it is difficult to argue anyone outplayed Love during last season’s second half. Love indeed led the NFL in QBR from Weeks 11-18, throwing 18 touchdown passes and one interception in that span. This continued with a dominant outing in a wild-card upset win in Dallas. For the full season, Love ranked ninth in QBR.

Taking considerable heat upon trading up for Love in 2020 — a decision that indeed deprived the last wave of Rodgers-era teams of a first-rounder who would help Super Bowl-contending squads — the Packers are making a seismic bet last season’s second half will lead to another run of stability at the QB position. They have enjoyed an unparalleled run, of course, at this position, as Favre lasted 16 seasons and Rodgers 15 as the team’s starter.

LaFleur said (via SI.com’s Bill Huber) he became comfortable with Love replacing Rodgers after the 2022 season due to how the 2020 draftee played during the preseason and on Green Bay’s scout team during the regular season. This led to a separation that involved two second-round picks coming back to Green Bay in last year’s Rodgers trade.

The outlier organization when it comes to quarterback development, the Packers are again betting on a season’s worth of starts will be indicative of long-term success. The Ted Thompson regime was certainly right on Rodgers, who was considered a higher-level prospect compared to Love. By parking Love for three seasons, the team missed out on the chance to build around Love’s rookie-scale contract and now will go from carrying a $40.3MM Rodgers dead money hit in 2023 to rostering a record-setting Love deal in 2024. Gutekunst acknowledged this contract will create cap challenges, via Huber, but noted he would rather be in that boat than lacking a good quarterback.

Both Love and Tagovailoa benefited from their teams waiting until Year 5 to complete extensions, as each secured four-year terms to move them into position for lucrative third contracts earlier. This NFL period has generally featured franchise-level first-round QBs being extended in Year 4, giving teams an extra year of control. Because of Tagovailoa’s injury issues and uneven career start, the Dolphins waited. The Packers reached a half-measure extension (two years, $13.5MM) with Love last year, rather than exercise a fifth-year option on a QB who had barely played. Less than 18 months later, the Utah State product required a record-setting contract, illustrating the leverage quality quarterbacks — even those without extensive sample sizes — possess in today’s game.

Packers, QB Jordan Love Agree On Extension

The next domino has fallen in regard to quarterback contracts. According to Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network, the Packers have reached an agreement extending quarterback Jordan Love on a four-year, $220MM deal. The contract makes Love tied for the highest annual average salary in NFL history.

The Packers quarterback is set to receive an NFL-record $75MM signing bonus. Jared Goff‘s signing bonus this year of $73MM is the next-closest such figure. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that Love’s new contract includes $155MM in new guarantees. Love will collect $79MM in the deal’s first year, per NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero, who adds he will see $175MM over the contract’s first three years. That betters Goff’s three-year total by $10MM.

This wraps a pivotal day for NFL contracts, with Love’s extension coming hours after the Dolphins gave Tua Tagovailoa a four-year, $212.4MM deal. Unlike Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence over the past year, Tagovailoa and Love agreed to four-year contracts. This will put the 2020 draftees in position to potentially cash in on third NFL deals earlier than the Chargers, Bengals and Jaguars passers, who agreed to five-year deals. After a report Friday afternoon indicated contract structure was holding up this agreement, the parties hammered out a deal that will tie Love to Green Bay through the 2028 season.

Love’s path to his big payday is one not often seen in the NFL. After being the fourth quarterback taken in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, Love was the only one of the four passers to not start at least half the season as a rookie. In fact, Love was the only first-round pick in that year to not even appear in a game his rookie season. He fell victim that year to the Packers’ notorious strategy of drafting and stashing a quarterback talent while their long-time veteran finishes out his time in Green Bay.

After redshirting his rookie year, Love made his first career start in 2021, replacing a COVID-19-positive Aaron Rodgers. He delivered a middling performance in a loss to the Chiefs and appeared in mostly garbage-time situations for nine other games in 2021 and 2022. In 2023, after Rodgers forced a trade to the Jets, Love finally was given an opportunity to prepare for the season as a starter. With ten game appearances and only one start under his belt, Love took over the offense, starting all 17 games last year. In his first season as the starter under center, Love went 9-8 in the regular season, completing 64.2 percent of his passes for 4,159 yards, 32 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions.

Green Bay’s 9-8 record under Love was good enough to earn them a playoff spot as the No. 7 seed, setting them up for a trip to the No. 2-seeded Cowboys in Super Wild Card weekend. Love played lights out, knocking out Dallas before going toe-to-toe and losing a three-point contest to the top-seeded 49ers.

That is the story of Love’s career: the lone season as a starter in the NFL. That was apparently enough for Green Bay to tie him with Burrow and Lawrence as the highest-paid players in NFL history. Burrow and Lawrence both are making $55MM per year on five-year contracts, so technically they are in line to receive more money than Love, but the Packers passer’s $220MM in four years matches them in annual value.

While this level of commitment may seem excessive for an 18-game starting sample (plus two postseason starts), with a contract year on the horizon, it would have been risky to allow Love to test free agency or potentially improve his bargaining position. The team is confident enough in Love’s potential and happy enough with Love’s production, that they deemed him worth what Lawrence was making, at least.

Both sides wanted this deal done by training camp, though it took a few extra days. As negotiations with the Packers had been failing, Love was staging a hold-in, attending training camp to avoid fines but participating minimally, if at all. After finally putting pen to paper, Love should be suited up for the team’s next training camp session.

The most important remaining ongoing contract negotiation is that of Cowboys passer Dak Prescott. Currently ranking 14th in average annual salary, Prescott’s regular-season success should set him up for a big payday, once he comes to terms with Dallas. The Tagovailoa and Love accords being completed will help set the table for Prescott, who possesses unique leverage in his latest Cowboys negotiations.

The Packers, though, have checked that item off the to-do list. Since trading for Brett Favre in 1992, watching him reign until 2007, letting 2005 first-round pick Rodgers take over in 2008 and reign until 2022, the Packers have enjoyed longevity at the quarterback position for 32 years. The question facing Love was whether or not he would allow Green Bay to continue that trend. Love will be 30 years old the next time he gets a chance to test free agency; that is, if the Packers don’t decide to push their longevity trend even further.

Minor NFL Transactions: 7/26/24

Today’s minor moves to wrap up the week:

Carolina Panthers

Cincinnati Bengals

Green Bay Packers

Kansas City Chiefs

Los Angeles Rams

New England Patriots

Philadelphia Eagles

  • Activated from active/NFI list: WR Shaquan Davis

Seattle Seahawks

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Blair reunites with the Seahawks after two years away. A former second-round pick for Seattle, Blair spent parts of 2022 with the Panthers and Eagles before spending last year out with an Achilles tear.

Cannella, who formerly went by Sal, played for the Arlington Renegades of the UFL earlier this year, leading the league with six receiving touchdowns and finishing first among tight ends with 53 catches and 497 yards. He’s been in an out of the NFL with stints in the USFL and XFL before; the Bucs are hoping this time will stick.

Contract Structure Holding Up Packers’ Jordan Love Negotiations?

Tua Tagovailoa‘s Dolphins extension leaves two NFC quarterbacks in talks with their respective teams. Jordan Love and Dak Prescott remain in contract years, and while the Packers passer might be closer to the goal line than the longtime Cowboys starter, work remains.

The Dolphins and Tagovailoa needed to address the QB’s per-year number, according to The Athletic’s Dianna Russini, whereas the Packers and Love are attempting to agree on contract structure. Packer contract structures come up frequently, as the organization does not typically include guarantees past the first year. That said, the team has bent for quarterbacks in the past.

Timing of guarantee vesting dates, a matter Patrick Mahomes‘ mega-extension influenced, and three-year payouts are among the primary issues pertaining to structure. Bonus payments represent another. The sides being in agreement on AAV and term length, however, would cross the key items off the list as negotiations wind down. As of now, however, Love remains tied to the half-measure extension (two years, $13.5MM) he signed in lieu of a fifth-year option payment in 2023.

Trevor Lawrence‘s Jaguars extension included three fully guaranteed base salaries and a partial guarantee into Year 4, with the rest of Lawrence’s 2027 money becoming guaranteed a year early. Preferring larger bonuses as opposed to fully guaranteeing salaries that far into the future, the Packers organized a complex deal with Aaron Rodgers in 2022. The team traded that contract to the Jets, restructuring it on the way out. Rodgers’ last traditional extension, which came in summer 2018, included what was then the largest signing bonus in NFL history ($57.5MM).

Rodgers’ pacts in 2013 and 2018 showed the Packers are not afraid of record-setting contracts, as the four-time MVP’s ’18 extension (worth $33.5MM per year, illustrating where the QB market has gone since) included $103MM over the first three years and $80MM by March of 2019.

Lawrence received $200MM guaranteed in total (on a five-year deal), while Tagovailoa just secured $167.5MM guaranteed. This gives Love some targets, though his one season as a starter gives the Packers relatively new territory to cover. The team extended Rodgers midway through his first starter season (2008), but it did not require a top-market deal to do so. Love’s contract will assuredly come in beyond $50MM per year, with ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter mentioning early this summer Lawrence’s $55MM AAV would likely be the floor.

Love is not practicing without a deal, and while the sides may indeed be close, training camp workouts going on while a healthy starting QB watches represents a rarity. While Love and Packers were hoping to complete this extension before training camp, the sides missed that soft deadline and continue to work on this long-sought-after agreement.

Packers, Jordan Love Making Progress In Extension Talks

Jordan Love is present at training camp but not taking part in practices as he and the Packers continue to negotiate a new deal. Nothing is in place at this point, but things appear to be headed in the right direction.

Progress is being made toward a deal being finalized, Dianna Russini of The Athletic reports. Both team and player in this situation expressed a willingness to have an agreement in place before the start of training camp. Likewise, general manager Brian Gutekunst confirmed earlier this week his confidence that talks will get over the finish line in the near future. Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio also notes a deal is “pretty close” as of Thursday morning.

The one-year starter has long been expected to join the $50MM-per-year club on his next contract, one which will take the place of the band-aid deal signed last offseason. That pact replaced his fifth-year option, a move which allowed Green Bay to evaluate Love’s candidacy for a lucrative commitment as Aaron Rodgers‘ successor. After an inconsistent start to the campaign, the 2020 first-rounder delivered strong statistical showings through the divisional round of the playoffs.

Expectations are therefore high moving forward for Love as he prepares to guide a Packers offense featuring a young pass-catching corps and multiple offensive line starters attached to their rookie contracts. As things stand, running back Josh Jacobs is the only skill-position player signed to a big-money deal, but that will change once Love’s deal is in place.

The value of the latter’s pact is thought to be the largest sticking point in negotiations. Issues such as length and guarantees are important as well in any QB mega-deal, but the ones signed over the past two years will provide Green Bay with a number of blueprints to follow. Getting Love back on the field as soon as possible is, of course, another motivating factor for team and player to come to an agreement. The wait on that front may end in the near future.