Under his prior contract with the Packers, quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers had a salary of $1.165 million and a fully-guaranteed option bonus of $58.3 million. Prior to the trade, Rodgers pushed the entirety of the option bonus to 2024.
The details were news to the Jets.
“We knew at the end of the trade that Aaron and Green Bay needed to work some things out,” Jets G.M. Joe Douglas told #PFTPM on Thursday. “We didn’t know the exact ramifications. It was just important to us that the cap number wasn’t going to go higher than it was at the time that we agreed to it. We didn’t know that it was actually going to go down to the minimum, so when they re-did the deal, you know, we saw the new number, knew that we saw that it was low for this year. We’re still working on restructuring aspects of the deal as we speak, but we feel like we’re in a really good place.”
Douglas confirmed that, for now, Rodgers is on the books for the minimum salary for 2023.
Next year, Rodgers has total compensation of $107.55 million.
The resolution of the $58.3 million option bonus could result in Rodgers committing to two years in order to earn the full amount of what he was due to make this year and what he’s due to make next year. It also could, in theory, result in Rodgers taking less money over the next two years.
If the trade had happened without a restructuring, Rodgers would have counted for less than $16 million against New York’s cap in 2023.
As Douglas said, they’re still working on the resolution of the contract. Ultimately, those numbers will say plenty about whether Rodgers intends to stick around for 2024, in order to get the rest of the $107.55 million.