Live look at me waking up from a casual Sunday nap to the news that the Packers are actually bringing back Aaron Jones:
I think this qualifies as a bit of a stunner. Me all week last week on the air and on the blog, ‘it feels like he’s pretty much gone, they made two offers, he didn’t accept them, they didn’t franchise him, he’s probably hitting the open market.’ Literally 72 hours later they lock him up on a 4 year, $48 million dollar deal. ‘That guy on the radio has no idea what he’s talking about!’- the text line this morning.
But I think it truly is a surprise. For all of the reasons I listed in my fabricated scenario above, it did feel like it was over. But this played out exactly like the Sam Shields scenario a few years back. Shields was up for an extension, had Drew Rosenhaus as an agent, the Packers didn’t franchise him, looked like he was out the door, and then signed a 4 year, $39 million dollar deal before he hit the open market.
And all of this was made possible due to the financial wranglings of Russ Ball. He’s like the real life version of the Alan from The Hangover card counting gif:
Reworked Bakhtiari’s deal, reworked Preston Smith’s deal*, it sounds like they’re going to rework Za’Darius Smith’s deal, etc. He put all of the puzzle pieces together to free up room to make this deal possible.
But the final piece of that puzzle was Jones wanting to be in Green Bay. I don’t know how much of this quote from Rosenhaus you can take as truth, listening to an agent talk about his/her client is like taking a radio DJ at his/her word when they talk about their lives on the air, but it would appear that Jones took less because he wanted to be in Green Bay:
Aaron Jones' agent Drew Rosenhaus confirms to @TheAthletic that the Pro Bowl RB has signed a four-year, $48 million extension with the Packers with a $13 million signing bonus.
Rosenhaus: "We anticipated bigger offers in free agency but Aaron wanted to stay with the Packers."
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) March 14, 2021
I would say this rings pretty true, given what the financial details actually were. I was under the impression that Jones was looking for Kamara/Cook type of money. Kamara signed a deal for 5 years and $75 million with $33 million guaranteed. Cook signed for 5 years and $63 million with $28 million guaranteed. So Jones signing for 4/$48 million with only $13 million guaranteed seems like it’s probably less than he could have gotten, given that his numbers are certainly comparable.
Now of course you’re going to have some fans upset about paying a running back that kind of money, some fans will be upset because they now feel like the AJ Dillon pick was a waste, some fans will be upset because they might not be able to sign Corey Linsley and they would have preferred that, and some fans will be upset because they just like to have a dump in their pants at all times about everything. That’s just the way this works.
But I think we can all agree that letting Jones walk would have been taking a risk. Going into next year with Dillon and a rookie would have been a risk. Resigning Jamaal Williams instead of Jones and pairing him with Dillon would have been less of a risk, but still a risk. As interchangeable as running backs have become in the last 10 years, Jones is an exception. He had his worst game in a Packer jersey in the NFC Championship Game, and that’s unfortunate, but he’s a gamechanger. Not just a running back that has a career yards-per-carry over 5, but he’s also one of the team’s top receivers. 3rd on the team in receptions in each of the last two seasons. After his first two seasons he’s proven to be pretty durable, and he’s become MUCH better at picking up blizters in the backfield. I understand the trepidation (word score) with giving a running back a big contract in 2021, but this one feels like a good gamble.
*LOVE the new incentive-laden deal for Preston. I don’t think there’s much debate that he had a decent sized dropoff from 2019 to 2020 (Za’Darius did too to some extent), but he got better as the year went on, and should now be fueled by million dollar sack/pressure incentives.
PS: What a day yesterday. This week last year, we were losing basketball, losing March Madness, and losing Opening Day. This year we’ve got a major Aaron Jones contract on the same day as Selection Sunday, and Brewer baseball is three weeks away. Thank you 6 pound, 8 ounce baby Jesus!
