Jordan Love spent three years in Aaron Rodgers‘s shadow. After only one year as a starter, Love performed well enough to match the record for the highest new-money average for any player in NFL history.
Appearing Saturday on NFL Network as part of “Back Together Weekend” (which still isn’t resonating with anyone other than those pushing it), Rodgers addressed Love’s massive new contract.
“I want to give a shoutout to Jordan Love becoming the highest paid player in the NFL,” Rodgers said, via USA Today. “J-Love, don’t spend it all in one place. But if you do, I still have a house in Green Bay up for sale.”
Love later addressed the joke about the house.
“Somebody will buy it, but probably not me,” Love said.
While Love isn’t the highest-paid player — he matched Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence for new-money average at $55 million — Love gets $78.5 million this season, including a massive $75 million signing bonus that will be paid out in full by December 27. And it’s a great development for the only guy in the three final years of dysfunction between Rodgers and the Packers who didn’t volunteer for the assignment. Love got drafted into that mess, and he kept his head low and his mouth shut while a Shakespearean drama played out around him.
Unfortunately, we probably won’t see Rodgers and Love face off at any point during their careers. They could have crossed paths this season under the 17th game formula, but they didn’t finish in the same place in their respective divisions in 2023. (The Jets will play the Vikings instead.) As a result, the Jets and Packers aren’t due to play until 2026.
Unless they meet this year in the Super Bowl (which would be awesome), the only way we’ll see Rodgers vs. Love is if Rodgers leaves the Jets after this season and signs with a team the Packers are due to play in 2025 — such as, for example, the Steelers. Who presumably will choose between Russell Wilson and Justin Fields after the coming season and who in theory could choose neither.
