Packers: Salary cap situation makes it hard to re-sign Aaron Jones

The Green Bay Packers must prepare for a real possibility of entering 2021 without their star running back.

Aaron Jones is set to hit free agency next month and it won’t be easy for the Packers to bring him back.

Green Bay’s salary cap situation means the team will need to free up space before the new league year begins. The salary cap will likely be lowered due to the Covid-19 pandemic, making it even harder to re-sign a star player like Jones.

According to Spotrac’s calculated market value for Jones, they project him to earn an average salary of $14.6 million. That would make Jones one of the highest-paid running backs in the league. Alvin Kamara and Ezekiel Elliott both average $15 million per year.

While it’s possible the Packers could find a way to make a deal work, it wouldn’t be easy. In all likelihood, it would mean the team wouldn’t be able to spend much, if any, more money in free agency.

Jones absolutely deserves a big payday. He has put together back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons and has an incredible 30 all-purpose touchdowns over the past two years. One of the most explosive running backs in football, Jones will make any offense better.

Jones has a career average of 5.2 yards per carry and has hit 5.5 yards per attempt in three of his four seasons in the NFL.

But after the Packers used a second-round pick on AJ Dillon last spring, one has to wonder whether they had been preparing to be without Jones all along. It was always likely he’d earn a big deal and the Packers knew they also had to give new contracts to Kenny Clark and David Bakhtiari, which they’ve now done.

If Jones is set to make over $14 million per year, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be returning to Green Bay in 2021.