Loser: Green Bay continues to fail Aaron Rodgers
Conventional wisdom preaches that teams featuring an elite quarterback must make sacrifices to the rest of the roster because of salary cap restrictions. But given the tremendous rise in cap figures in recent years (and a continued rise in years to come), this isn’t as true as it once was. It certainly isn’t true at all in the case of the Green Bay Packers, who have Aaron Rodgers at a bargain rate of under $21 million against the cap the next two years. Heck, his base salary for the 2017 season is just $12.55 million.
Furthermore, Green Bay has plenty of cap space with which to make moves. And they’ve done it to a degree. They retained pass rusher Nick Perry on a five-year deal worth up to $60 million and signed tight ends Martellus Bennett and Lance Kendricks to free agent deals.
But landing tight ends won’t really help protect Aaron Rodgers, who took some big hits during the playoffs this past postseason and has endured 81 regular-season sacks the past two seasons.
Making matters worse is that Green Bay watched T.J. Lang sign with inter-divisional rival Detroit and also let center J.C. Tretter leave to join the Cleveland Browns. Losing Tretter won’t hurt so much, because Corey Linsley was solid last year at center. But losing Lang (especially to the Lions) was a bitter pill we’re sure Rodgers, who sent Lang a heartfelt message of thanks afterwards, didn’t want to have to swallow.