Cap Numbers and Guarantees for Aaron Rodgers' Historic Contract
The cap number values and guaranteed money on Aaron Rodgers' historic contract have trickled out Monday. The Packers QB agreed to his new deal last Friday.
By Zach Kruse
The contract details for Aaron Rodgers' five-year, $110 million extension have trickled out Monday.
According to Tom Pelissero of ESPN 1500, Rodgers will make $54 million in guaranteed money, including a $35 million signing bonus.
Aaron Rodgers' new contract with #Packers included a $35 million signing bonus, $54M in total guarantees, per source.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) April 29, 2013
The $54 million in guarantees is $2 million more than Joe Flacco made in his new deal, and pushes Rodgers' total guaranteed money over the total seven-year deal to $62.5 million. Rodgers will make $40 million total in 2013.
Maybe more important, Rodgers' yearly cap numbers over the length of the contract will never exceed $21.1 million.
Aaron Rodgers' salary-cap figures: $12 million, $17.9 million, $19.6 million, $20.65 million, $20.9 million, $21.1 million
— Aaron Wilson (@RavensInsider) April 29, 2013
More details on Rodgers' contract can be found here and here.
While still a historic, record-setting contract, Rodgers' deal is one the Packers can stomach. The league's best player probably could have pushed the envelope further, and the Packers have to feel good about the cap numbers in later years and the flexibility afforded early in the deal.
Zach Kruse is a 24-year-old sports writer who contributes to Cheesehead TV, Bleacher Report and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He also covers prep sports for the Dunn Co. News. You can reach him on Twitter @zachkruse2 or by email at [email protected].
Comments (38)
April 29, 2013 at 10:55 am
good deal considering what other QBs have been getting
April 29, 2013 at 12:01 pm
Those last 2 or 3 years will be ripped up and reworked just like the Brady contract. His cap hit will remain manageable. Love this deal.
April 29, 2013 at 12:15 pm
HUGE waste of money. At least only half of it is guaranteed. We can dump him down the road and not take a severe financial hit. Nice one Ted.
April 29, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Amen to that. He doesn't weigh enough to warrant that sort of money, and not only that but holy-shit-did-you-see-what-that-other-team-just-did?
April 30, 2013 at 12:15 pm
Not subtle enough...
April 29, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Great cap management. Mort reported that in 2014 the Flacco deal will hit the Ravens for something crazy like $28-29 million against the cap, they'll be restructuring that one real soon. Ted is good at what he does... If only he would sign a few overpriced, aging castaways that we've all heard of from time to time... He'd be perfect.
Why is that purple nurple lover Pelissero breaking this?
April 29, 2013 at 12:44 pm
Because he knows that his purple followers have a huge inferiority complex with the better team 4 hours to the east...
April 29, 2013 at 01:46 pm
When they sign him in 12 years, they'll wanna know what he's accustomed to.
April 29, 2013 at 02:01 pm
If Rodgers played for another team last year... and was a free agent this offseason... would TT have signed him to this contract?
Or would he have kept his own quarterback simply because his system calls for ONLY drafting and developing?
April 29, 2013 at 02:32 pm
"If Rodgers played for another team last year… and was a free agent this offseason… would TT have signed him to this contract?"
My initial answer is "of course not."
But there are too many unknown variables, primarily the status of the QBs he currently has on the roster.
That said, I'll also add that if Rodgers was a free agent, he would have gotten much more than he did in this deal.
April 29, 2013 at 02:52 pm
You could have saved yourself some time by saying...'STFU you buffoon.'
April 29, 2013 at 02:59 pm
Ha...I'm well aware of cow and his BS. I reply to him from time to time.
April 29, 2013 at 02:57 pm
so the answer is "no".
April 29, 2013 at 02:59 pm
What was unclear about my answer?
April 29, 2013 at 04:31 pm
Oh, and I guess I forgot to ask: what's your point?
April 30, 2013 at 09:28 am
Every team would have made a bid for him.
You do this just to piss people off, don't you? If not, this is really dumb.
April 30, 2013 at 10:25 am
I'm still waiting on his point...
April 30, 2013 at 12:35 pm
The problem with this logic is that you're assuming that the TT would've gotten the wrong player.
Which he didn't. So this is a hypothesis that's wrong in the core. You're questioning if he would've kept the system if he was a bad drafter, but it's exactly because he's a good drafter that the system is in place to begin with (that and the tiny little problem of market size, nature of the franchise - publicly owned - and cost efficiency, but I'd have to dedicate another post to explain why the Packers wouldn't survive with any other business model).
And the system doesn't call for ONLY drafting and developing.
With quality drafting comes the "problem" of elite players hitting FA in their prime. Thus most of the cap space must go into re-signing players.
Which leaves no room for overpriced (a little more on that notion later on) FAs. Which are most of the FAs.
In this system (and in any rational system), if you have to overspend, it's better to do so on players that have already proven that they work in that system and in that locker room than on outside players.
That's not the case, mind you: https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2013/03/02/performance-based-value...
Granted it's subjective. As subjective as claiming one player is overvalued/undervalued. You cannot escape from the subjectivity.
What you can do is trace performance over a long period of time of all players in the league, then compare the salary of the player with his position on the rankings. Which is what they did.
And, according to PFF, the Packers were +$7.6M. Granted, this was before the Rodgers deal. It was also before releasing Woodson (#1 overvalued), Jennings (#2 overvalued), Satudray (#7 overvalued) and Driver (#9 overvalued).
So, that's not the case. But even if it were, it would be justifiable under that prism.
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Sorry for the long post. To answer your question simply: That would never happen.
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TL;DR: With Rodgers' new contract TT can't get FAs, so the Packers will never win a SB until Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy are fired.
April 29, 2013 at 03:03 pm
I know CHTV doesn't block people like SBNation does... but can an exception be made here? Cow has gotten more obnoxious than Toad from Minnesota or Pack66. At least they go away for months at a time.
April 29, 2013 at 03:14 pm
dude - i asked a simple question.
April 30, 2013 at 01:48 pm
Actually it's a good question. My answer would be no - TT would not have signed ARod. I think TT would have set a price that would have been below the market. Thus the Pack would not have ARod on their roster. Which is why this is such a good question.
Since so many posters are gushing as to what a great deal this signing is, then I'm assuming you'd be irate the Pack didn't go after the hypothetical FA ARod harder(just like TT does with so many FA's). So you'd, in a sense be angry about the D&D philosophy, at least in this situation, but have no problem brow-beating others who think it would be wise from time-to-time to pick up certain FA's.
Either way it points out the hypocrisy of many this sites posters. Well played Cow.
April 29, 2013 at 03:40 pm
I don't see why he needs to be banned, just find a way to ignore him when he gets all incessantly know-it-all without a hint of leeway.
April 29, 2013 at 09:20 pm
Cow's posts are like watching a car wreck. You don't want to look, but you just have to...
April 30, 2013 at 06:51 am
Hasn't Fitz been chanting the mantra, "DO NOT ENGAGE"?
Love the car wreck analogy (seriously, made me lol), but that still doesn't mean you have to ram your car into the pile-up.
April 30, 2013 at 12:39 pm
Not exactly the same case, but you're basically asking for the networks to stop talking about Tim Tebow.
May 01, 2013 at 09:50 am
being called an "asstard" is something i can handle.
BUT COMPARING ME TO TEBOW IS HITTN' BELOW THE BELT!
April 29, 2013 at 03:03 pm
It is really hard to be negative about this deal after you look at the structure. Kevin Seifert does a fantastic job of doing a year-by-year salary hit comparison for #12's contract v. the deals of other recent mega-QBs. I have to say, I feel a lot better after looking over how the numbers are laid out under Seifert's contract. With an expected rise in TV revenue after 2015, I think that Rodgers' deal is going to end up looking very reasonable over the long-haul, and will not kill the Packers in the short run. I've persistently been wondering whether teams with QBs who have mega deals win Super Bowls, but this deal does not look like a cap killer.
April 29, 2013 at 03:11 pm
"With an expected rise in TV revenue after 2015, I think that Rodgers’ deal is going to end up looking very reasonable over the long-haul..."
I think that's the key point. Keeping the cap number consistent year to year will really pay off in a couple years.
April 29, 2013 at 03:59 pm
I made reference to this in an earlier post. If this deal looks over the top now, just wait till RG3, Luck and Wilson's next contracts are due. When they get their next big paycheck, it will make Rodger's deal look like chump change. The trend line for QB's ain't going to change directions anytime soon.
How anyone could think this is a bad deal (see Cow) is just beyond me.
Is it a lump of our salary cap? Yes.
Without a good to great QB can you win a SB? No.
Is Rodgers one of three best QB's in the league? Yes.
Doe we have him in GH till 2019? Yes.
Is this a good move? Yes.
This keeps the Pack in contention for a SB till just shy of 2020. A no-brainer. Not something that should be controversial.
April 30, 2013 at 12:44 pm
The only point I raise about the deal is this:
In the end, Rodgers got paid as the biggest salary in the NFL.
Now, we all know that this would be the case whether the Packers re-signed him or not. And that chances are if they waited anymore to restructure the deal, it would've gotten even bigger.
But, there was no need for Rodgers to be the highest paid player, and taking a lesser contract would ensure that the Packers would have more cap space to make the team better. So, in the end, it was about ego. Compromised, cap-friendly ego.
April 30, 2013 at 12:47 pm
I always assigned the guaranteed portion of the money to player ego, while I've looked at the total money in the contract being directly related to the ego of the agent. It's in David Dunn's best interest to tell future clients he negotiated the 'biggest salary ever' for one of his clients.
April 30, 2013 at 12:54 pm
Great point. Don't know which one is which, but I'd completely neglected the agent factor.
April 30, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Just a thought. Along those lines, interesting to note the National Football Post breakdown by a former agent:
"His $54 million is the fifth-largest amount of guaranteed money ever received in an NFL contract, trailing only Drew Brees ($60.5 million), Peyton Manning ($58 million), Tom Brady ($57 million) and Tony Romo ($55 million)."
Talk about 'which one of these is not like the other'....
http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Inside-Aaron-Rodgers-new-deal.html
April 30, 2013 at 03:53 pm
Yeah, had read that.
1 word: Jerral.
April 29, 2013 at 04:29 pm
This contract only increased Rodger's cap number this year by $2.25 million. After they pay rookies they will have $7-$8m left in cap space. Look for another contract extension during the bye week. Raji, Shields, Jones, etc...Which every player earns it and is willing to take TT's offer.
April 29, 2013 at 08:01 pm
Willing to bet Shields will get done before the season. Usually when they leak that they're working on a deal, the extension announcement follows in relatively short order.
April 29, 2013 at 08:57 pm
Hope so.
April 29, 2013 at 05:58 pm
Just going by the avg of the two deals 11.62 per and 18.5 mil per thats an avg of roughly 25% of the cap every year for our two best players which isn't so bad.