Cory’s Corner: There’s No Looking Back

Now that Jordan Love is signed, more people are going to complain. 

No matter what happened with this contract situation, people were bound to be upset by it. The Packers and Jordan Love agreed to a four year, $220 million contract, which includes a $75 million signing bonus — the largest signing bonus ever given to an NFL player. 

So you can go ahead and be upset that the Packers made Love the highest paid player in NFL history, but it was the right choice. It’s a little weird because he has only started one NFL season, but he won a road playoff game and tallied 18 touchdowns and only one pick in the final eight weeks of the regular season. 

There are plenty of people that don’t want to hear this, but Love is a top 10 quarterback in this league. He’s better than Trevor Lawrence, Matthew Stafford and Baker Mayfield. He is only 25 and we still haven’t seen his best football. 

The Packers made the obvious division. If they didn’t  lock him up now, the Packers would’ve ended up with six less wins. Sean Clifford tries hard, but he’s not very good at diagnosing a defense presnap. And Michael Pratt is a rookie that is just trying to catch lightning in a bottle and win the backup job. 

But Love isn’t getting all this money simply because of magical stats. He is getting this money because he can lead. He has put in the work in the offseason. He has thrown to many different pass catchers — including Aaron Jones, who is no longer in Green Bay. 

Just look at this contract dispute as proof. How many “hold ins” have you seen? I’ve never heard of it before. It takes a big person to go to practice and meetings without the chance of contributing. And it really says a lot when your teammates still speak highly of you, even though you haven’t thrown a single pass or did a single jumping jack. 

We all figured that this contract was going to be over $50 million. If you didn’t, you haven’t been paying attention. The last quarterback to sign is usually the highest paid. Which means, Dak Prescott, who will likely get close to $60 million a year, is on deck for being the highest paid player in the league. 

And don’t think for a second that Love was selfish for what he did. The Packers could’ve nailed this down before training camp even started. But they waited and waited some more. That hesitation ultimately cost them more money and it made a national story out of their starting quarterback for refusing to practice. 

I still am unsure as to how Love is going to project, but for right now, he is excellent at changing his arm angle, throwing the intermediate pass and throwing on the run.

If he keeps doing those things at a surprising clip, the future is going to be pretty amazing for a guy that never even suited up his rookie season.