The Green Bay Packers has had a pretty specific and smart way to structure contracts. The standard around the league is to give players a high signing bonus and a low base salary in Year 1, making the player get a regular amount of cash with a lower cap hit. The problem is how to keep a lower cap hit in Year 2, when the impact of the signing bonus is gone.
The Packers found a way to make it smoother. In Year 2, players simply agree to get less money. Traditionally, Green Bay pays high amounts of money in signing bonus, and that’s the only guarantee of the deal.
With Jordan Love, the situation is a little different. As a quarterback, his market demanded more guarantees, so he has fully guaranteed money into Year 3. Even though he has a strong cash flow through the first three years of the extension, Love will make “only” $13 million in 2025. It’s a low figure compared to what he made in 2024 ($79 million) and to what he will make in 2026 ($51 million). Later in the contract, Love is slated to make $43 million in 2027 and $45 million in 2028, but those final seasons are not guaranteed.
What 2025 looks like
Jordan Love will make $13 million in 2025, which is the 143rd highest salary in football this year—19th highest amongst quarterbacks.
Although the cash is low, the cap hit isn’t that much. Love has the cap proration from the signing bonus he received in 2024 and also from the previous bridge deal contract he had signed in 2023, elevating his 2025 cap hit to $29.757 million
It’s still a manageable number, the 27th in the NFL and 16th highest among QBs. If the Packers want it, it would still be possible to reduce the 2025 cap hit by more than $8 million, but it would add some more to his following seasons.
The Packers trusted Jordan Love to a point where he became the highest-paid quarterback in NFL history by total average. However, the quarterback market is fast and extreme. Since that, Dak Prescott has already elevated the average by $5 million, and the Packers structured Love’s contract in a way that allowed the team to have cap flexibility for years to come
