Jets have all the leverage in Aaron Rodgers trade negotiations: Will they use it?

The Packers have painted themselves into a corner with Rodgers' contract and the Jets shouldn't bail them out

The current state of the Aaron Rodgers trade negotiations between the New York Jets and Green Bay Packers appears at a standstill. According to Rodgers, he wants to go to the Jets - and of course the Jets want him - but the Packers are asking for more trade compensation than the Jets believe is appropriate. If you flip the perspective, the Packers believe that the Jets aren’t willing to give the appropriate compensation for the final years of a future first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, an opinion shared by many of their fans.

Instead of hashing out who, in fact, is the most desperate and using vague notions of why one thing or another will happen, in this piece I’m going to walk through exactly the different scenarios each team could find themselves in this season re. Rodgers, the estimated likelihood of each, the consequences on their ability to win games, and the timeline for when a trade is most likely to happen.

Once you have a thoughtful, detailed understanding of the circumstances and the motivations on each side, it becomes fairly obvious that the Jets are in a much better negotiating position. The greatest enemy to the Jets negotiating leverage is their own impatience or desperation, which can be mitigated by stepping back and assessing their options in a holistic fashion.

WHAT WOULD THE JETS BE TRADING FOR?

This seems like a simple answer: “Duh, you’re trading for a top-10 quarterback of all time and the chance to compete for a Super Bowl.” But it’s a bit more complicated. Too often contracts are downplayed, or outright ignored in trade scenarios.

The saying is: “You don't trade for players; you trade for contracts." Elite players can be a value on almost any existing contract, while good and even great players can make appropriate contracts valuable. But the contract is the cost in any cost-benefit scenario, and Rodgers contract makes him mighty expensive.

Rodgers contract is a burden for any team acquiring him, or for the Packers if they retain him. Jason Fitzgerald from OverTheCap.com has a great breakdown of the salary cap impacts of a Rodgers trade [emphasis added]:

A team who trades for Rodgers, as long as he is traded for prior to the regular season, would inherit Rodgers guaranteed 2023 salary, which is $59.465 million. … The team would also be responsible for a $49.25 million injury guarantee in 2024. That salary would be fully guaranteed if Rodgers is not released a few days following the Super Bowl in February.

You can simply break this down as $60 million in cash for one year of play, or nearly $110 million for two years. There are unique options and bonus structures that string out the cap hits for Rodgers over multiple seasons. But as Fitzgerald explains, the lower salary numbers that could mitigate the bonus amortization in the contract’s later years will likely never be realized.

Rodgers also has a 2025 and 2026 season in his contract at very low salaries of $20.9 and $15.05 million. For all intents and purposes these are void years as there is no scenario that would see Rodgers playing at these salaries. My assumption is they were only included in the contract to make it easier to work out a retirement on the cap in 2025 and/or drive the APY on the contract lower so it would never look as if Rodgers received a $50M+ per year contract.  

The likely scenarios for the Jets acquiring Rodgers on this contracts are:

• One year of play and 2024 offseason retirement: $60 million cash spend, $15.8 million 2023 cap hit, retirement processed post-June 1st, and dead money totaling roughly $44 million in 2024 and 2025.

• Two years of play and 2025 offseason retirement: $110 million cash spend, $48.3 million 2023 and 2024 total cap hit, retirement processed post-June 1st, and dead money totaling roughly $61 million in 2025 and 2026.

In a vacuum, neither of these scenarios is attractive for the Jets, especially with Rodgers entering his age 40 season and coming off of a relatively down year (21st in EPA per play). It’s possible that Rodgers plays longer than more two seasons, but unlikely entering his age 40 seasons. Even if he does, his contract will have to be restructure going forward, probably at a cost that benefits Rodgers.

The lower cap numbers in 2023 and 2024 for Rodgers theoretically increases the chance to compete in that window. But you can’t ignore the dead money in future year. The Jets are coming off of a recent rebuild and have a roster full younger players who’s ability to extend that window will be severely hampered by the dead money in Rodgers’ contract.

THE PACKERS LEVERAGE

Now that we’ve established that Rodgers’ contract should severely limit the Packers leverage in terms of actual trade value, what else do they have? Most obviously they could play multiple teams off of each other to drive up the price, the classic form of leverage in negotiations. We shouldn’t assume there are zero teams willing to take on Rodgers’ contract in it’s current form, but with his stated desire to go to the Jets I think it’s unlikely.

The Packers can gain trade leverage by making the value proposition more attractive for potential trade partner, and that would be accomplished by making the contract more palatable. The Packers currently have around $20 million in effective cap space for this season, and while they could theoretically free up more by restructuring other contracts, they’ve pretty much maxed that out already for the 2023 season.

The contracts for David Bakhtiari, Kenny Clark, Jaire Alexander and Aaron Jones have all been structure (or restructured) to lower their 2023 salaries to around $1 million, leaving no can to even kick down the road. There is some flexibility in Rodgers contract itself, especially if a trade comes post-June 1st. The Packers would gain roughly $15 million in 2023 cap space with a trade, which gives them more space to restructure beforehand and eat additional salary/cap.

As unlikely as it seems at this point, the Packers best source of leverage might be calling Rodgers bluff, mending the relationship and moving forward with him as the 2023 starter. As unlikely as it seems at this point, I don’t think it’s a bad outcome for a team that structured Rodgers’ contract for exactly this scenario, plays in a weaker division and conference, and, by my measure, had a top-10 team in play quality last season. At the very least, this is the scenario I would be most afraid of from the Jets perspective.

THE JETS LEVERAGE

The biggest source of leverage for the Jets is that they don’t have to make the trade. The free agency quarterback market doesn’t leave much to be desired, but the Jets can literally explore all other quarterback options this season. Rodgers being tied to the Jets will make it massively disappointing for the fans and perhaps ownership to have another starting quarterback under center in 2023. But ultimately what will determine the fates of Joe Douglas and Robert Salah is the performance of the team this season.

The Jets can exert leverage by simply exploring other options, whether they’re Lamar Jackson, Matthew Stafford or Ryan Tannehill, all of whom would come with better contracts that don’t cripple the team a year or two down the road. After the draft unfolds, there could be another quarterback or two who could be acquired with teams transitioning to a high draft pick (Geno Smith or Jared Goff). Even in the worst-case scenario, the Jets could acquire a current high-level backup from elsewhere on the cheap, or bring in a current free agent who can produce decent results, like Teddy Bridgewater. If the 2023 starter is ideal, the Jets can be in position to upgrade and have a much more successful team in the future, even without Rodgers. This at least gives the Jets possible options outside of Rodgers, whereas the Packers likely don’t have any options to trade Rodgers outside of the Jets.

The principal-agent problem does incentivize Douglas to discount the future downside in trading for Rodgers (age, possible 2024 retirement, massive dead money), but it still must be a consideration. I don’t think Douglas, even if fully self-interested, ideally wants to retain a job for a year or two and then be quickly swept out after a Rodgers retirement. If Douglas trades for Rodgers on the existing contract and loses significant draft capital in the process, he shouldn’t expect the Jets to sustain good enough performance post-Rodgers to keep him employed.

THE LIKELY TRADE TIMELINE

As former Packers executive Andrew Brandt likes to say, “deadlines spur action,” and there are a few in the coming months that will likely serve as the trigger for a potential Rodgers trade.

• March 15th, Free agency: This was a potential trigger that didn’t happen, and after the first wave is over there is little left to incentivize negotiating movement.

• April 27th, NFL Draft: If the Packers want 2023 picks, whichever they may be, they could compromise some to get a deal done at this point. I think it’s still unlikely to happen for two seasons: 1) The Packers can optically get a better deal trading with higher round picks in 2024 the Jets will be more willing to part with, 2) The Packers gain cap space trading Rodgers post-June 1st.

• Mid June, mandatory minicamp. I highly doubt Rodgers is interested in showing up to any workouts prior to this, so I didn’t include them in the timeline. This would be post-June 1st, so the Packers have no cap-related reasons to delay. But even here I can see the negotiations carry on for longer, as the Packers can excuse Rodgers from minicamp and don’t have to exercise his contract option until the end of the offseason. Ideally, the Jets would want it done here, but not a hard dealine.

• Late July, training camp. This is going to be the real deadline. Even if the Packers could theoretically wait until right before Week 1 to make a deal and avoid exercising Rodgers’ contract option, the Jets won’t wait that long. You can’t wait until August without knowing who your starting quarterback will be, and the Jets will probably like to know sooner. If the deal hasn’t happened by this point it’s more than likely not going to happen.

• TBD, a Jets-determined deadline. As I mentioned above, the Jets have much more flexibility here than the Packers. At any point during the offseason, the Jets can set a deadline for the Packers to make the deal and then execute plan B (which they’re hopefully exploring now), leaving the Packers with a massive contract on a quarterback they don’t really want and possibly no other trade partners. Where should the Jets set this deadline? I’d say sometime in June is the best timing. It’s post-draft, but pre-minicamp. At that point you offer the Packers a 2024 third-round pick just to get it done and be willing to walk away if they won’t take it. If the Jets really wanted to play hardball, they could even set the price at a Day-3 pick and likely win the negotiation, but the juice probably isn’t worth the squeeze.

NO NEED FOR THE JETS TO PANIC

I think it’s important for Joe Douglas and the Jets to think about the totality of any move they make, not the initial reaction. Caving and giving up high-value draft picks doesn’t make sense given the contract you’re acquiring. Ultimately, you want to put the team on a path to sustained success, and the fans will reward making the right moves with the right results, even if it requires changing their opinions. Opinions will swing from extremes on most teams during the course of a season, and a willingness to ride out the downswings without panicking and making things worse is a primary trait or a good general manager.

Joe Douglas should know he has all the leverage in this negotiation, set expectations for ownership based on the realities of the situation, and steadfastly execute the plan to maximize the Jets future success. He’s in a great position to do all of this, if he has the will to see it through.