Jordan Love Agrees To Contract With Green Bay To Take His Place Among NFL's Highest Paid Players

There's no doubt the Green Bay Packers expect Jordan Love to be great because the team and the quarterback have just agreed on a four-year contract extension that makes Love one of the NFL's highest-paid players.

Love's deal is worth $220 million. It includes $155 million in full guarantees.

The deal ties Love as the highest-highest paid player in the NFL on an annual average basis. Love will average $55 million per season. He ties Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow on that annual average basis. 

Joe Burrow (Credit: Cara Owsley/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK)

Burrow, Lawrence, Love Top Pay Scale

He surpasses the deal Tua Tagovailoa, got earlier on Friday when he agreed to a $212.4 million deal that averages $53.1 million per season.

Burrow, who helped the Bengals reach two consecutive AFC Championship games and one Super Bowl, will collect less in fully guaranteed money than Love. Burrow  got $146.5 million fully guaranteed compared to Love's $155 million.

This deal comes with multiple meanings behind it that stretch beyond its numbers.

Santa Clara, Calif. - Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love during the second quarter in a 2024 NFC divisional round game against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium. Photo: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Packers Betting On Love

Firstly, it proves the Packers are certain – certain! – Love is the right quarterback to guide them for the next half-decade or so, as a young roster chases a championship. That belief, by the way, in no small way requires some faith.

Love showed in 2023 that he is one of the NFL's rising quarterbacks. But it was his first year as the team's full-time starter. So everything he did in 2023 to earn this big payday is a small sample size. 

Most teams reward their quarterbacks after seeing them two or three seasons on the field as a starter either with themselves or another team.

The Packers didn't enjoy that opportunity because they spent the first three years of Love's career watching Aaron Rodgers play. So the Packers are making this investment in the belief (and hope) that what they saw in 2023 was not just a good ceiling for Love's abilities, but rather a very impressive floor.

INDIANAPOLIS - Quarterback Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers looks for an open receiver during the game against the Indianapolis Colts at the RCA Dome on September 26, 2004. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Can Love Bring Another Super Bowl Titletown?

The Packers, one of the NFL's legacy teams, have not won an NFL championship since 2011 when they won Super Bowl XLV.

That championship drought – which is in its 15th season – came despite the fact the Packers have enjoyed great quarterback play for decades.

Brett Favre, who was traded to Green Bay in 1992, was one of the NFL's finest quarterbacks from about 1994 to 2007 in Green Bay.

Aaron Rodgers followed that with 18 seasons of great play until he was traded to the Jets last season.

So the Packers are on a dominant quarterback run of about 30 years.

And while Love fed that legacy when he finished last season playing like one of the NFL's best quarterbacks, the question remains whether that is sustainable.

(If it's sustainable, teams that are perpetually needing quarterbacks will be banging their heads against walls if they study Green Bay's run.)

No one knows whether the Green Bay dominance at the position will continue. 

But the Packers needed to pay Love to try and find out.

And they obviously have seen signs they've got the right guy.

GREEN BAY, Wis. - Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers reacts after getting the win against the Washington Redskins at Lambeau Field on December 8, 2019. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)

Jordan Love Extends Packers' QB Run

This contract agreement means the Packers believe Love can be in the same league with Favre and Rodgers. At minimum, his first year starting suggests he's there.

The fact is Love last season performed better than either Favre or Rodgers did their first year as starters in Green Bay.

Love last season threw 33 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He completed 64.2 percent of his passes for 4,159 yards. He did this at 25 years old.

Rodgers was 25 years old in 2008 when he took the reins of the Packers offense from Favre. He threw 28 touchdown passes and 13 interceptions and threw for 4,038 yards with a 63.6 completion percentage.

Favre, meanwhile, was only 23 when he became Green Bay's starter and it showed a little bit. Playing in an era that made passing much harder because rules protecting quarterbacks and receivers were not yet in effect, Favre threw 18 TD passes and 13 interceptions in 1991.

He completed 60.9 percent of his throws and accounted for 3,303 passing yards. 

And this: Neither Favre nor Rodgers got the Packers into the playoffs their first year as the team's starting quarterback. 

Love did. And the Packers even won a game, beating Dallas to advance to the divisional round of the playoffs where they lost to San Francisco.

The point is Love is so far on the path to continuing the Packer legacy of great QB play. That's why he's among the NFL's highest paid players now.