Albert Breer on Aaron Rodgers’ Final Season, Jalen Hurts’ Future, Bryce Young’s Contract

Welcome in.

It is the Brewer Report for Thursday, May 28th, a mailbag edition of the Brewer Report.

As always, you can find more answers and more detailed answers to more of your questions on the MMQB.

com with the print edition of the mailbag, but as we always do, we will get to three of your questions right here , right now.

And the first question comes from Big Mac, that's at Big Mac Nola.

At Big Mac Nola asks, how many wins are you giving Aaron Rodgers in his final send-off?

And Mac struggled with this one a little bit.

I'm gonna give him 10.

And I think that this is a Steelers team.

As much as I've criticized them for maybe hanging on a year too long, Where things break right, they could be difficult to deal with.

And when I mean things break right, I mean age not hitting them in key spots, um, and particularly on defensive guys like Jalen Ramsey and Cam Hayward and TJ Watt still there.

Um, the offensive line coming together.

Um, and then just the general health of the team staying where it needs to be, cause again , when you've got an older, more experienced team, how you're gonna make it through the season becomes a big question.

Now, that said, If they are able to hold it together from a health perspective, if they do get some of that luck.

This is a team that is set up for Aaron Rodgers to have a really nice final season.

Here's what I mean.

Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers have well over a decade of experience working together.

In fact, when, when Mike McCarthy was fired, that was after 14 years together, or 13 years together between Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy, and 11 of those 13 years were with Rodgers as McCarthy's starter.

As a result, the offensive system that Mike McCarthy is putting in is complex.

There's a lot of time on task there between the two guys, and what can really leverage that sort of system is having experience everywhere else.

In other words, if you have Rodgers and McCarthy having all this, this, this, this history together, and just this vast offensive scheme together, It it can make sense for them, but if you've got rookies or 2nd-year or 3rd-year guys that you're relying on, it becomes harder to leverage the experience those two guys have together.

If you're experienced around the quarterback and the coach, around an experienced quarterback and coach, though, it gives you a chance to fully weaponize what you're able to do with all those years they spent together.

And so they have DK Metcalf, who is now going into his 7th or 8th NFL season.

You know, Michael Pittman, a veteran receiver coming over from the Colts.

You have Rico Dowdell at running back.

He is a more experienced running back.

He is going into year 88.

Pat Pryormuth has been in Pittsburgh for a long time as chemistry with Aaron Rodgers.

And so you've got this group around Aaron Rodgers.

They should be able to get the best out of him because the amount of experience they bring to the table is gonna enable the Pack, the, the, the Steelers to really take advantage.

of the complexities and the intricacies of Mike McCarthy's system.

So, again, it's gonna take some luck from a health perspective, it's gonna take a lot, some luck, take some luck from an aging perspective that a bunch of guys just don't get old all at once.

Um, the defense is gonna have to be part of this too, and keeping games close so they can play a certain style on offense.

But, you know, I do look at the Steelers and, and, and I see a team that was in the playoffs last year, where, you know, if that young offensive line comes together, if Pat Graham is able to do a little more with some of the older defensive players, if they get lucky, and then I can see Aaron Rodgers and those skilled position players fitting really nicely together.

So, Um, I don't know if that makes me bullish on the Steelers.

Um, I, again, I have been critical of the way some of this has gone.

I have stated my opinion that I think that this was, you know, at least on paper, the year to rip the band-aid off, but as it stands right now, I'm, I'm really excited to see what it all looks like.

All right, question number 2 comes from Mike Madden.

That's at Mike_Madden.

He asks, what is the make or break year for Jalen Hurts's top Super Bowl MVP?

Productive, inexpensive, it's not likely he'll be cut or traded.

He's as secure as it gets, Mike.

I disagree because of where the Eagles are with Hurts contractually and because of where the Eagles are as a team right now.

Now, as a team, if you look at like how leveraged they are, part of the reason why they have to wait until next week to trade AJ Brown when, you know, under normal circumstances, they could have done it 3 months ago, is because they have leveraged their salary cap to a point where there's almost no one left to restructure.

So all of this is eventually going to come to a head.

Um, again, it doesn't mean it's gonna have to happen next year, the year after, but eventually, that day is coming.

Now, this is a credit to Howie Roseman for being creative in the way he's put together the roster and using every resource.

This is a credit to Jeffrey Lourie, the owner, for being willing to spend cash over cap for as many years as he has.

But at some point, You're gonna be pulling the plug on this, and you're gonna have to go through a year or two where you're kind of eating it from a cap standpoint.

So whenever that comes, that's gonna lead to questions about everyone on the roster and everyone expensive on the roster, and there's nobody more expensive on the roster, obviously, than the quarterback, and that is Jalen Hurts.

Number 2, it's where he is in his contract right now.

He's got 2 years left.

After this one.

Now, this year is a fully guaranteed year.

It's the 4th of four fully guaranteed years or years that would at least essentially be fully guaranteed when he signed the deal back in 2023.

In 2027, less than half his money is fully guaranteed.

In 2028, none of his money is fully guaranteed.

And so, when you get to that point of the deal, that's when a team will look at going back in and saying, OK, do we want to rework this?

They haven't reworked it this year, which will bring things to a head next year, and then the question becomes, Let's say Caleb Williams and Drake May get 70 million a year or $65 million a year or whatever that is.

Now you're asking the question, do you want to pay Jalen Hurts again , which would mean doubling down on him, which would mean committing to him for another 3 or 4 years at least, which would mean guaranteeing the money back.

And so, that's where the crossroads is contractually.

So they're gonna be coming to a team, team crossroads, and they're gonna be coming to a contractual crossroads.

Additionally, This will be the first year, assuming things go the way that everybody expects, they will.

Since his rookie year without AJ Brown is part of the equation.

So now it's really gonna be on him.

He's got an aging Dallas Goddard at tight end.

He's got Saquon Barkley, who's still an elite player at running back.

A receiver, he's got a mishmash of, of different guys.

He's got a rookie in Makai Lemon.

He's got a, a guy who's got the ability to be a number one but hasn't been the number one yet, Devonta Smith.

Settling into that role.

They traded for Jontavian Wicks, who's coming over from the Packers, really talented guy who maybe hasn't hit his ceiling yet.

They bring in Hollywood Brown.

A lot of this is gonna be on Jalen Hurts to make this work.

And what does that look like now without the duo of AJ Brown and Devonta Smith?

There are a lot of questions.

And so I don't know what this is gonna look like at the end of this year, but make or break is probably a little strong.

Saying this is a pivotal year for Jalen Hurts is not.

I think it's totally fair to say that this is a pivotal year for Jalen Hurts when it comes to his future in Philadelphia.

Finally, question number 3, and this question comes from Ryan Smith, that's at S Ryan Smith 7.

How will the Panthers' 2026 season go and what does BY need to do to secure a long-term deal in Carolina?

BY, of course, being, um, Bryce Young, the quarterback they took first overall in the 2023 draft.

He's going into his fourth year, has had a really nice rebound.

His career.

The Panthers win the division, go to the playoffs, put up a good fight against the Rams last year.

The arrow seems to be pointing up on Carolina and really where they felt like they were last year from a roster standpoint is they patched the holes and they've gotten themselves up to level ground.

But they weren't particularly elite in different areas.

And so, yeah, I think what happens this year, a lot of it's gonna come down to guys on their roster elevating from good to great.

And this is what happened in Seattle last year.

I think this is sort of where Green Bay was last year where it was, you, you know, you need some of those younger guys to take the next step, you know, so for Carolina, Bryce Young would certainly be one of those guys, but there are other guys, Tedero, McMillan, Nick Skorton.

I mean, even bringing in Jalen Phillips like this, he finally reaches potential.

There are a bunch of guys in the roster that I think could take them from contending in the NFC South to maybe being even a little bit better than just that.

So, that's how I see the Panthers going into the 2026 season, and I think a lot of that's gonna come down to the internal development of the roster, the guys they already have getting better.

As for Bryce Young, this feels to me a little bit like Baker Mayfield in Cleveland.

And you got to 2020, they make the playoffs, they win a playoff game for the first time in forever.

Baker Mayfield riding high.

He winds up playing out his fourth year in 2021, got nicked up.

We sort of found out the truth.

There, the, the Browns were looking all along at leveling up.

Now, if he had played well, maybe that would have played out a little bit differently, but that to me would be the comp.

Like I, I still think with that, with the, with the, with the Panthers holding that fifth-year option for 2027.

There's still some wait and see here as far as where they are on him and whether or not they're willing to give a top of the market deal.

Here's the other part that's complicated about it is when you draft a quarterback that high, it's almost like you have to extend him at that elevated level or let him go.

That's at least the history of it.

The guys who've done the mid-level quarterback deals would have become the mid-level quarterback deals, Daniel Jones, Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, guys who are reclamation projects elsewhere.

So, could the Panthers get away with paying Bryce Young somewhere in that neighborhood?

Maybe they'd be amenable to that.

Would Young be amenable to that?

I'm not sure.

And I don't know that he's ever gonna be a guy that you're gonna pay, again, $65 or $70 million.

So that'll be an interesting one to watch.

The Panthers are gonna be an interesting team.

To track in 2026.

Appreciate you guys coming out.

As always, you can leave more of your questions, comments down below here on the YouTube page.

You can also get to me on my social media, as always, um, and that's at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert Arbury on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

Appreciate you guys having, coming out.

Have a great weekend when we see you again, it'll be June 1st, an important day in the NFL calendar.