The Green Bay Packers saw enough from quarterback Jordan Love and opted to make him one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the NFL last summer. Love signed a four-year deal with the team that drafted him in 2020, and the contract was worth $220 million.
Look, in today's NFL, teams pay their quarterbacks, even if they're not winning Super Bowls. Not many quarterbacks are winning Super Bowls these days, with Patrick Mahomes winning three of the last six, and with Matthew Stafford and Jalen Hurts sprinkled in there as well. It's hard to win a Super Bowl, but the Packers clearly think Love is the right guy to get them back to the NFL mountain top.
The blockbuster Micah Parsons trade highlights their confidence in Love.
Well, it appears that several unnamed NFL executives feel otherwise. In a recent article by Jeff Howe of The Athletic, NFL execs sounded off about the absurd money quarterbacks are making in the NFL and how they don't feel those particular players deserve to be paid that much.
"And frankly, teams are skeptical of the contracts handed out to QBs like Lawrence, Tagovailoa and Love — QBs who have yet to prove themselves in pivotal moments.
'Now, we’re paying guys just to pay guys,' an executive said."
Packers QB Jordan Love gets slighted by NFL executive
While the comments aren't going to be fun for Love to hear, he'll need to get used to this sort of criticism. Not only that, but the execs aren't entirely untruthful here. Love has been a solid quarterback for the Packers, but the team has failed to reach an NFC Championship Game with him at the helm.
If the ultimate mission for the Packers year in and year out is to win a Super Bowl, then they've failed at that goal. Love took over as the full-time starter in 2023, and while the Packers did knock the Dallas Cowboys off in hilarious fashion in the playoffs during his first year as a starter, they still came up short in the following week's game against the San Francisco 49ers.
They also stumbled against the Philadelphia Eagles this past year.
The Packers weren't wrong for giving Love this deal since they believe he's the guy to get them back to the big game, but until he wins it all -- and even then -- people are going to doubt him and say he's overpaid. The NFL is a business after all, and a harsh one at that.