Talks Begin for Love’s Extension; There’s Window to Get It Done

At the NFL Annual Meeting on Monday, Green Bay Packers GM Brian Gutekunst said talks have begun toward signing quarterback Jordan Love to a lucrative contract extension.

Author:
Bill Huber
Mar 26, 2024

In this story:

Brian Gutekunst

Green Bay Packers

jordan love

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst acknowledged the obvious at the NFL Annual Meeting in Orlando, Fla., on Monday: The team and quarterback Jordan Love have gotten to work on a contract extension.

“There’s been some obviously preliminary discussions, but we want to do it the right way and, certainly, the sooner, the better,” Gutekunst told reporters. “But, at the same time, we want to make sure we do it the right way. We’ve started but it’s not something that’s going to go quickly. It’ll take some time.”

There’s a window for the Packers and Love to hammer out an agreement.

First, a deal can’t be signed until May 3. That’s exactly one year after last year’s extension between Love and the Packers became official. As of Monday, there are 39 days until May 3.

Second, the first voluntary practices of the offseason will begin a few weeks later. The offseason schedule has not been announced, but the first day of organized team activities last year was Monday, May 22. The equivalent on this year’s calendar is Monday, May 20. That’s 56 days away.

So, that leaves the Packers and Love’s negotiating team eight weeks to hammer out an agreement that will make Love among the highest-paid players in the NFL.

The first day of OTAs is the critical date to keep in mind. To be sure, there’s nothing forbidding Love from arriving to the first voluntary practice of the offseason without a new contract. However, it’s almost impossible to believe he’d put what could be a five-year, $250 million contract at risk. While significant practice-field injuries are rare, don’t forget the plight of left tackle David Bakhtiari, whose career was ruined by a knee injury suffered during a run-of-the-mill Thursday practice.

It’s hard to imagine Love’s primary agent, David Mulugheta, would allow Love to participate in a voluntary practice without a signed extension.

Time is on their side, to be sure. Also, as former Packers executive Andrew Brandt likes to say, “Deadlines spur action.”

The Packers, who seem primed to be a championship contender in 2024, don’t want Love’s absence to become a distraction that bleeds into June or even July. Their all-for-one-and-one-for-all approach was a key part of their success last year. At the same time, Love, who built up so much goodwill among the fans with how he handled his three seasons behind Aaron Rodgers before stepping to the forefront last season, doesn’t want to spoil anything with a holdout – even if it’s an unofficial holdout.

Given a one-year extension last offseason, a compromise contract that got him off the fifth-year option while guaranteeing him more money, Love answered every question Gutekunst might have had. Starting with the win over the Chargers through the playoff massacre of the Cowboys, Love threw 21 touchdown passes vs. one interception.

He finished first in the NFL with nine games of two-plus touchdown passes and zero interceptions and second with 32 touchdowns to lead the youngest team in the league to unexpected success.

With one prolific stretch of games, which carried the Packers into the playoffs, Love went from one of the NFL’s most intriguing question marks to one of the MVP favorites; at +1400, he has the seventh-shortest odds at FanDuel Sportsbook.

“I think certainly he’s going to face different challenges, not only from the teams we face but the different personnel we may have that he may be playing with,” Gutekunst said. “I think hopefully as you go through Year 1 as a starter and him and Matt (LaFleur) and the other teammates work together on how to solve the challenges that are in front of us, they have a better idea of how to work together to solve those through the week and through the games.

“So, I think hopefully that experience will carry over. But every year is different and the challenge, you can try to anticipate but you really don’t know where those challenges will come from, so they’ll be different ones. But again, I think having a year’s worth of challenges to work through together and the continuity of that will hopefully serve us well as we go forward.”