Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan is currently the NFL’s highest-paid player with an average salary of $30 million. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers soon will replace him.
Once it became known that the Packers wanted give Rodgers a contract extension, a waiting game ensued. First, Rodgers would look at where free agent quarterback Kirk Cousins signed and for what. Then Rodgers would wait to see what the Falcons gave Ryan.
That was obviously the plan all along. Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff ran into Rodgers in February and Rodgers told him as much.
“I saw Aaron, interestingly enough, at the Super Bowl in the airport,” Dimitroff told Andrew Brandt on The Business of Sports Podcast. “And he just said to me, ‘we don’t know each other that well, but just get this deal done with Matt first so I can get on with my life.’ I knew right then, I thought, that was a good thing because that’s all we needed was for Aaron to go first and to navigate through all of this — we knew that wasn’t going to be the case.”
It has become apparent that Rodgers wants to be the highest-paid player in the game. The Packers wanted to give him an extension once the season ended. Those discussions have now dragged on for four months.
Rodgers wanted to wait for the other quarterbacks who he knew were getting huge deals to be able to top them. Not that Rodgers doesn’t deserve to be the highest-paid player in the game, but…
As we’ve noted, Jordy Nelson possibly doesn’t get cut if Rodgers had signed earlier. Rodgers was supposedly angry about that move, but he realistically could have prevented it.
But as they say, this is a business.