The Green Bay Packers selected Jordan Love with the No. 26 overall pick of the 2020 NFL Draft, and he’s been a backup quarterback to Aaron Rodgers ever since. That all changed on April 24 when the Packers traded Rodgers to the New York Jets in exchange for multiple draft picks, officially making Love Green Bay’s starter.
Being a backup quarterback is often a thankless job and isn’t easy, a job that Love manned behind Rodgers for three seasons. He worked and developed in the shadows behind Rodgers, constantly staying ready for the moment, and on Wednesday he opened up about what that journey entailed.
“It seemed like three years, it seemed like a while looking back on it,” Love said. “The first year was the longest. …Definitely felt like a while.”
Multiple reports also suggested that Rodgers was not the biggest fan of the selection of Love in the 2020 draft, and he’d go on to win back-to-back NFL Most Valuable Player awards and signed a three-year, $150 million contract extension in 2022.
“But I’ll admit, I think the hardest time was when he re-signed the contract last year. It was kind of like, ‘OK, well, where do we go from here? What do I do?’ I sat back, thought to myself and came back with the approach like just go ball out,” Love said.
Love now gets the opportunity he’s been waiting years for, as his work behind the scenes will come to light in Green Bay’s opening game of the season on the road versus the Chicago Bears on September 10.
“Since college and since I’ve been here, I’ve improved drastically,” he said. “Just learning the scheme, learning how to play the scheme and just improving myself as a quarterback.”
Full breakdown on Jordan Love contract reveals ‘unique’ extension
After trading longtime quarterback Aaron Rodgers a week ago, this week the Green Bay Packers decided to sign quarterback Jordan Love to a contract extension. Love signed a one-year extension Wednesday, which makes him a Packer for the next two seasons and guarantees him $13.5 million.
NFL insider Field Yates provided more details regarding Love’s contract extension, an interesting deal that could be worth up to $22.5 million for 2024.
According to Yates, Love receives an extra $7.5 million in cash this season based on the structure of the extension. For the 2023 season, Love has an $8.7 million signing bonus on top of his base salary of $1.01 million, which also includes up to $9 million in incentivized escalators which will be added to his 2024 base salary.
Love’s 2024 base salary is $5.5 million, all fully guaranteed and capable of increasing depending on meeting his 2023 incentives, which include a $500,000 workout bonus.
The structure of Jordan Love’s deal is complex, with him meeting incentives tied to playing time, team wins, team stats, and other parameters in 2023 giving him the opportunity to increase his 2024 salary from $5.5 million to $14.5 million.
