Aaron Rodgers agrees to paycut in new contract with Jets

One of the last outstanding issues for the Jets’ offseason was figuring out the contract of quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Prior to the trade, Rodgers needed to rework his contract to facilitate the deal. That left him with a cap hit of under $2 million for 2023 but one in excess of $107 million in 2024. Those numbers clearly were not going to last. Rodgers was obviously going to make more this year and less next year.

We now have details on the contract.

In this Rodgers gives back $35 million in guaranteed money over the next two seasons.

From the looks of this it seems like the Jets have struck a good deal. Rodgers’ Green Bay contract was frankly an albatross. Given the steep price the Jets paid for the future Hall of Fame quarterback, they needed to negotiate better financial terms. According to Over the Cap, Rodgers’ salary will match Derek Carr for the 12th highest average salary at the quarterback position in the league. If you are anticipating a degree of decline from Rodgers, this should be a fair deal. If Rodgers return to the top of the league, the deal will be a moderate bargain.

Jason Fitzgerald of Over the Cap estimates that Rodgers will have an $8.88 million cap hit for 2023, which matches the team’s general overall approach this offseason of pushing cap hits to the future to maximize space for the short run.

Given the circumstances, I think the Jets did as well as they could have here. They took a bad value deal and turned it into one that will likely be a good value deal.