Packers GM Brian Gutekunst talks about Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love and pursuit of a Super Bowl
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Last March, the Green Bay Packers signed Aaron Rodgers to a three-year contract extension.
They had another option. They could have traded Rodgers to a franchise he’d be willing to play for and would have been heavily compensated in return.
The Denver Broncos’ new coach (Nathaniel Hackett), for instance, was Rodgers’ offensive coordinator the previous three years. There’s no reason to think the Broncos wouldn’t have offered for Rodgers at least the same package as they sent the Seattle Seahawks for Russell Wilson. In essence, that was two first-round picks (in 2022 and ’23), two second-rounders and three players.
The Packers then could have found out this season whether Jordan Love can succeed Rodgers long term. If they weren’t sold, they’d have had extra draft capital to move to the top of the ’23 draft for a quarterback.
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But after a contentious offseason with Rodgers in 2021 and bitter home playoff losses as the NFC’s top-seeded team the past two years, general manager Brian Gutekunst and team CEO Mark Murphy went all-in with the 38-year-old, back-to-back reigning MVP. Rodgers’ complicated contract is in essence a three-year deal worth $150 million, with the first two years fully guaranteed for $101 million.
Bottom line, why did Gutekunst and Murphy make that call?
“We’re chasing a championship,” Gutekunst said this week. “Having a quarterback playing at the level he is is probably the most important piece to winning a championship. We’ve obviously put ourselves in a really good position the last few years, a lot of that is because of him along with a really good team around him. For us, that’s always a goal around here. I just think as long as he’s playing at this level, which is rare, we have a chance to win this thing. That’s why we did it.”
Gutekunst’s answer was to the initial question in an extended interview previewing this season with PackersNews columnist Pete Dougherty two days after the roster cutdown to 53.
How do you view Rodgers’ contract? A one-year deal? Do you expect him to play at least the guaranteed portion (two years)? Three years?
I certainly think he’s got a lot of good football left in him, certainly beyond that contract, I believe. At the same time, Aaron obviously has played as long as he has, he’s going to have some decisions to make year to year. I think that’s how he’s probably looking at it. I think every year we’re going to try to live in the now and try to accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish. Then every year we’ll sit down and chart out the best course. The last two years, winning the MVP, playing at the level he’s playing at, for those of you that have been out to camp, there’s no deterioration of his physical skills, everybody can see that. We’re excited not only for this year but for what he can bring to the table the next few years coming.
You don’t think he’d go one-and-done, do you?
He’s an interesting guy. I don’t think so because I think he has too much good football in him. But at the same time, I know he has a lot of other interests as well. He’s played a long time, but I believe he’d like to keep playing. But I do believe guys that have reached the level he has for as long as he has need to probably think about going year to year.
Sounds like you think there’s a chance he’d go beyond three years. I haven’t gotten that feeling from his public comments.
I think that’s a better question for him. I just know when you’re playing as well as he’s playing, and from my eyes enjoying as much as he’s enjoying playing, that’s here and now obviously, but as long as his body is holding up and he’s enjoying playing with his teammates, I would think he would keep playing. But that’s a better question for him.
As Rodgers has gotten older, he’s become more open about some parts of his life. That includes his use the last two offseasons of the hallucinogenic drug ayahuasca. Does him talking publicly about that affect the way the organization views him, how you view him, how the coaching staff and his teammates see him?
I don’t think so. All these guys have different interests. He’s been around here a long time, we know who he is, we know the character of the man. So those things don’t affect how we look at him because we’ve known him for so long. But it’s always interesting.
How do you feel about Rodgers not taking part in offseason practice this year aside from the mandatory minicamp? For whatever he gains by decompressing and resting away from football, would there have been more to gain by him practicing because of the team’s turnover at receiver this year?
That’s an interesting question. One of the things, and I do believe this, Aaron is at such a master’s level with this offense and the National Football League, I didn’t mind it at all, only because I think a lot of our young players needed the time to get some of the fundamental basics down. I do think players that have played as long as Aaron has, they need some time in the offseason to recharge the battery so to speak. They have other interests and different things going on. We would love all our players here all the time, even when the rules don’t allow it. We want those guys working on their craft and being together and the chemistry, so we want all our guys here all the time. But at the same time, I think Matt (LaFleur) and the organization are very understanding of the guys that need some space.
Was that part of the agreement when you did the extension with Rodgers, that he wouldn’t attend most offseason practices?
It’s all voluntary to begin with, right? Mandatory minicamp is the only thing that’s mandatory for these guys, which he did show up at. It’s all voluntary for all these guys. We’ve in the past had significant offseason bonuses for a lot of our players, and we still do. That’s not the case for him as much now with this new contract. That’s part of it. But it is voluntary for all these guys, and I think some guys take that time because they need it, and some of them stay here, it’s just part of the NFL.
Almost every year Rodgers has been your quarterback, the Packers have been a legitimate Super Bowl contender. You have one Super Bowl appearance and win to show for it. What’s your feeling about that? Does it leave you with any sense of underachieving?
I wouldn’t say underachieving at all. Every opportunity you have a chance at, it stays with you forever, specifically when you feel you have a really good chance. There are only so many opportunities, and only one team walks away happy every year. When you have an opportunity to be that team, it’s always disappointing, and those things, since the time I started here in 1999, they stay with you. I wouldn’t call it underachieving at all because we put ourselves in position for those things again and again and again, which I think is the first step. It would be nice to finish it off this year. But at the same time, it’s on all of us, the way we look at it, to make sure we’re in it each and every year.
Rodgers the last two years voiced the belief in the organization that you needed the top seeding in the NFC to get over the hump, but you had that the last two years and your season ended in the playoffs at Lambeau Field. If you couldn’t do it under those circumstances, when will it happen? What’s it going to take to get that Super Bowl?
I think it’s us playing well in those moments. We’ve earned the right to have those moments, the No. 1 seed you’re talking about. I do think it’s important – you have to be playing your best ball during January to get there. We just need to find a way in those moments to play at a very elite level. That’s the only way you’re going to get over that hump. I think we’re on the right track, I think we have the right focus. We’ll see how it goes. I know we’ve had the teams to get there and win it, we just haven’t been able to get over that hump and play at our very, very best in those games.
Why haven’t you played your best in those games? Is it happenstance? Does the organization need to change anything?
We look at it from every angle, from health, from psychology, all the different angles. Were we strong enough in these areas? At the end of the day, it’s not a seven-game series like most professional sports, it’s a one-game-take-all situation, and sometimes that’s how that ball bounces. You just can’t be discouraged, you have to keep moving forward.
Whenever Rodgers’ time here ends, will there an inevitable crash for the Packers because of the salary-cap mortgaging the past couple seasons to go for it now?
I don’t think so, and I’d push back a little bit on the cap mortgaging. We’ve certainly done some different things than we would have in the past, but mostly because of the pandemic and COVID, how it affected the salary cap. We definitely wanted to stay competitive through that time, so we did some things that were maybe unusual for us, but not unusual for the league. I don’t really expect that. When you lose a Hall of Fame quarterback, there’s always going to be a little bit of an adjustment period. But I don’t think the cap will have a huge effect on that.
I’m thinking more of Rodgers’ contract than anything. If he retires or is traded next year, you take a $68 million cap hit in dead money. If he leaves in ’24, it’s $76 million.
There are some things as we go from year to year to lessen that. But those will be obstacles we’ll have to work around, no doubt about it. But having him as our quarterback now is worth that. You weigh those things. Russ Ball does a fantastic job laying things out so as we as an organization make decisions, we know what we’re getting into. And obviously we’re very hopeful the cap continues to go up, that’s very important. Another pandemic would not be great for any of us in the National Football League. At the same time, our goal is to obviously stay competitive now, but in the future as well.
Do you think Jordan Love will be a winning quarterback in the NFL?
I do, I think he’s on his way, he’s doing some very good things. It’s funny, every player in the National Football League kind of hits their comfort zone, and when they do that’s when you usually see things start to take off. I think we saw some of that this preseason. He was certainly much more aggressive in his decision-making and felt more comfortable. Year 3 seems to be a window for a lot of quarterbacks for where things start to slow down a little bit, particularly for a guy who hasn’t played in those three years very much. A lot of guys are playing. No different than when Aaron was coming through. I think it was Year 3 as a scouting staff where we started to see a different level of play from him. Then obviously Year 4, that first year he played very, very well, but we weren’t winning. I think halfway through that second year he was a starter, the learning-how-to-win thing really took off. I think in the middle of that second year, we were about a .500 team over his first two years as a starter, but once it all clicked, he took off. I think Jordan is on the right track. He’s got a lot of growth still left. I’m glad he’s got a real good quarterback room, I’m glad we had a full preseason and he had a lot of snaps, that was really important for him after getting hurt last year. I think he’s on the right track. But winning games in the National Football League is a hard job, and until you actually get out there and do it, I don’t know if you ever really know.
What do you with Love next spring if Rodgers comes back? You have to decide whether to exercise Love’s fifth-year option (for ’24) in May. If Rodgers comes back, do you have to trade Love then? Do you trade Rodgers? Can you keep both without exercising the fifth-year option and take your chances on Love leaving as a free agent in ’24?
There are a lot of hypotheticals in there. We’ll get through this year and see where we’re at in the end. We’re thinking about those things and understand the options that are available to us. When we get there, we’ll make those decisions. The quarterback position is obviously extremely important for us, always has been, always will be, so we put a lot of time into that and how we go about it. But again, from what we’ve seen from Jordan, we’re really excited about that, and it really will depend a lot on what Aaron wants to do moving forward. We’ll let this year play and out, and when we get to next offseason, we’ll start to really think about what we’re going to do there.
Do you think you can get an answer from Rodgers next spring on whether he’s going to play in ’24 as well?
We’ll have those conversations when we get to that point, those will be ongoing. I do think where Aaron is at in his career, to ask any of those guys to commit that far, I’m not sure it would be fair to the player. But we’ll talk about what his thoughts are moving forward, sure. And then obviously a lot of that information will determine what we’re going to do as an organization moving forward. There’s a whole season to go between now and then, we’re not going to try to make those decisions before their time.
Is it even plausible to have Rodgers and Love on the roster in ’24? Love would be on the fifth-year option by then, which probably will be in the $25 million range.
Anything is possible, but that would be very difficult. That scenario would be very difficult to envision.
Rashan Gary has been dominant in training camp. He’s under contract for ’23 because of the fifth-year option, but NFL rules allow you to extend him this year if you want. Is extending him now a priority, or are you going to wait a year on that like you did with Jaire Alexander?
We typically wait on those things, and I think that’s what we’ll do here. What he’s doing right now, we’re very excited about the season he’ll have. He really embodies a lot of the things we’re looking for in football players around here, so I think the expectation is he’ll be here for a long time.
There were a lot of skepticism about your drafting him so high (No. 12 overall) because of his poor sack production in college at Michigan. Do you feel vindicated about that pick?
I think that was more media driven, I don’t think there was really any merit to that. He didn’t have particularly great stats, but a lot of guys coming out of school don’t have great stats. We’ve seen a lot of pass rushers come out of college with mediocre stats, but they’re game wreckers with how they affect the game, and he certainly was that. There was all kinds of stuff floating around about the lack of work ethic and things like that with Rashan that were never the case at Michigan. Sometimes these things happen, maybe people that represent other people in the draft try to get things swayed one way or the other. But that was never the case inside this building, we obviously thought very highly of him from where we took him. He’s been everything and more since we drafted him. Couldn’t be prouder of him.
Why was it so important to upgrade your defense with your first two draft picks, even taking a guy (Quay Walker) at a non-premium position (inside linebacker)? Did you think it was important to change the identity of the team?
You look at it as changing the identity of this team, that really wasn’t it at all. When you go into any draft, you really want to try to be in a position where you can take the best player available and not get too needy or position driven. As you know, we’re always looking at all the different options in the draft. It just kind of happened to fall that way in the draft where those guys were available. The appeal of having two inside linebackers, kind of clones a little bit in certain ways, 6-4, can really run, really good length, changes our defense a little bit. That was enticing. But the way I look at it sometimes, not only this year but in Year 2 and 3, those selections were really going to solidify us at what I consider premium positions for us, for a while. We’re really excited about all the young guys that are here, they’re all on different paths and at different points in their development. There are going to be some guys that help this year, no doubt about that, and there are going to be some guys that may not contribute significantly on offense or defense, certainly they’ll help us on (special) teams. Every year’s team identity is different. It’s shaped through training camp and the early part of the season, and how you handle the adversity that comes your way. I’m interested to see how these guys handle that and what identity this year’s team is going to become.
You spent two second-round picks to trade up to draft receiver Christian Watson. You could have stayed put and picked two players, or made small trades up with both, and ended up with two receivers, a receiver and a tight end, a receiver and an outside rusher, a receiver and a cornerback. What made it worth putting two big eggs in one basket to get Watson?
We came out of Day 1 after the first round, you’re always looking at your board, and you have guys you value at a certain level. We certainly valued him very much. Maybe the board wasn’t as strong in other areas as we would have liked, so it was like, we believe in that player, we’re going to see what it would take to get up to that area and select him – we kind of knew where we had to get to select him. Once we made the deal, looking at the rest of the board, that’s what we felt was best for us trying to read the tea leaves of how it might fall.
Do you think you have enough receiving weapons to win it all?
I do. The veterans we have coming back, and again really excited to see new opportunities for guys like Allen (Lazard), Randall (Cobb) is going to get more opportunities, Sammy Watkins being here, all those guys have proven it and done it in the National Football League and are going to get more opportunities than they have in the last couple years. So excited about that. The young guys are going to have to come along. That always takes a little bit of time, so it will be interesting how quickly they’re able to adjust. But I think the short amount of time we’ve had them, they work extremely hard, they’re really good people, the talent is evident. When you have the kind of talent these guys have, the work ethic they have, whatever time frame it takes they’ll get there, that’s what I’m most encouraged about.
Two receivers selected early in the 2020 draft, first-rounder Jalen Reagor and second-rounder Laviska Shenault, were traded this week at a relatively low cost (Reagor for fourth- and seventh-round picks, Shenault for sixth- and seventh-rounders). Why didn’t you make the deal for either?
We just really like our group. We’re always looking at how things fit, and I like our group right now. We’ll see how it goes and see if we’re able to accomplish the things we need. If we’re not, we’ll always consider making changes, but right now I really like our group and I really don’t expect any changes in that group.
You didn’t reach a contract extension with Davante Adams last season, and that set a bad tone for him because he felt like you took care of other players in the past but not him ...
Just to push back on that, we did offer him, and I think there was very much a thought process in his mind that he’d like to move on regardless.
Was your offer last fall comparable to the last offer you made him in March?
Yes.
You ended up trading him to the Raiders in March. How do you think the franchise came out of his departure overall? Are you better or worse off in the long run with the two picks (first- and second-rounders) you got for him?
It’s tough whenever you lose a player of Davante’s talent, and the person himself and what he brought to the organization, it’s hard to say you feel really good about losing that player. He meant so much to our team, and he did everything the right way. Even to go back to last year, in the last year of his contract, to sacrifice himself and his body for his teammates, he’s a unique individual, he will be missed here, no doubt about it. But once we got to the point where we franchise-tagged him so that big (cap) number was taking up a certain portion of our cap and we realized we were not going to be able to do an extension with him, we had a couple choices. We could keep him under the franchise tag moving forward, which would have affected a lot of other things and a lot of other players we wanted to re-sign and wanted to bring back. One we realized that, we felt it was in the best interest of the organization and Davante to make that move. To get the first- and second-(rounders), I wasn’t sure we’d be able to do that. I thought we got the most we could get at the time and felt good about that.
Why did he want to move on?
I think that’s a question for him. Certainly getting to the West Coast was important for him. Derek Carr was a very close friend, that was very important to him. But I think that’s probably a better question for Davante.
You were 7-0 without Adams the last three years. Is there anything that helps Rodgers or coach Matt LaFleur in not trying to get him the ball so much and running the offense more by the book? Is that even plausible?
I’d say no. You want as many good players as you can have, and he’s obviously an elite wide receiver. So I wouldn’t look at it like that. I give our guys a ton of credit, when we were in those situations they were able to adapt and overcome him not being on the field. Since Matt’s been here, whatever players we’ve missed, they’ve done such a good job adapting to what we have. That gives me a lot of encouragement as we head into this year without him. It’s just our ability as our team, and our coaching staff, their ability to see what our players do well and adjust and really highlight what they can do, not what they can’t do.
And finally, do you think you’re better equipped to win the Super Bowl this year than the last two years?
I think we have an excellent shot. Whether we have a better shot than last year or the year before, that’s a tough thing to say. We’ll see as we get through the season. I certainly think we’ve got the men in that locker room to have a better shot. They’re going to have to come together as a team, get through the adversity of the season, that really builds a lot of the character. And when we get to those final games, we’ve got to play at our best. But there’s no reason to think this group can’t accomplish everything it wants to.