The reasonable conclusion to Aaron Rodgers taking one of the bigger pay cuts to guaranteed money in NFL history would’ve been that he wants to help the New York Jets. The second most reasonable conclusion would’ve been that he didn’t want to do this for the Packers — for their front office, anyway.
But in agreeing to chop off $35 million from his contract, Rodgers’ figures actually also account for a massive Jets mistake: Zach Wilson’s entire rookie deal.
As pointed out by Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap, Rodgers’ pay cut offsets all $35 million of Wilson’s contract with the Jets. If I didn’t know any better, it was almost as if New York was trying to negate the effect of Wilson on its books with this pay cut alone.
Was talking with my friend today who made a great point that the Rodgers $35M paycut essentially offsets the entire contract of Zach Wilson. #Jets
— Jason_OTC (@Jason_OTC) July 27, 2023
Rodgers will now have an $8.8 million cap hit in 2023, and that number will only rise to $17.1 million in 2024. By the time he’s presumably ready to retire in 2025, it will be $51.5 million, but irrelevant. And in the meantime, it sure seems like he’s helping the Jets forget the reason they traded for the four-time MVP in the first place.
