Schefter doesn’t believe Green Bay Packers fans have anything to worry about until Labor Day.
On Day 3 of the Jordan Love holdout, ESPN’s Adam Schefter stopped by ESPN Wisconsin to give his take on the standstill. While he did mention that he doesn’t have direct knowledge of what the hangup in contract discussions is, he did say that the likely issue is not the raw dollars that will be tied to the extension of the quarterback, but rather the details of the contract — including guaranteed money.
Guaranteed money is a huge hurdle for the Green Bay Packers to overcome, as players like the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow received $146.5 million in guaranteed money on their extension. This is an issue for Green Bay, as the team doesn’t promise any guaranteed money beyond the first year of extensions, historically. Meanwhile, Burrow received three years of guaranteed salary on top of two rolling guarantees following that three-season stretch. There we find the gap that is likely being argued about day and night.
As far as the holdout is concerned, as well as if a deal will get done between Love and the Packers, Schefter had this to say:
There is too much that they’ve done. They’re too far along, in my mind, that it’s hard to imagine that it wouldn’t get done, but that possibility exists that they can’t figure it out. That they can’t it across the finish line. I think they will.
I think that when we talk about that Dak Prescott contract that looms out there, you want this deal done before then. You do not want Jordan Love’s deal to follow Dak Prescott’s deal if you are the Green Bay Packers and you have a roadmap to getting this deal done.
Whether you like it or not, Joe Burrow came in at 55 [million dollars per season]. Trevor Lawrence came in at 55. So it shouldn’t be all that difficult to figure it out. Both sides sound like they are motivated to get it done, and if there is an agreement that the guy is not going to practice. That, of course, Jordan Love first weighed in. The team signed off on it. It didn’t sound like they were upset about it, it sounded like they were complicit in it.
To me, that tells me that they’re confident that they’re going to figure out a way to get this contract situation resolved sooner rather than later.
Schefter did caution against the word “panic,” as he said that he wouldn’t panic that a deal wouldn’t get done until Labor Day. If you want to listen to the full interview with Schefter, you can find it in the video linked below.