NFC NORTH

GREEN BAY

It may be water under the bridge, but Matt Schneidmann of The Athletic has a long look at why QB AARON RODGERS is no longer a Packer:

A little more than three years ago, Aaron Rodgers was preparing to make his second appearance of the night on “The Pat McAfee Show,” the streaming sensation on which Rodgers is a regular guest, when he got a text from his longtime agent, Dave Dunn.

“QB,” it said, a reference to the Packers’ surprise selection of Utah State quarterback Jordan Love with the No. 26 pick of the 2020 NFL Draft.

Green Bay was fresh off an NFC Championship Game debacle, a 37-20 loss to the 49ers in which the team allowed 285 rushing yards — the most ever in an NFC title game. Conventional wisdom indicated the team should select a run-stopper, or maybe a wide receiver to complement star Davante Adams.

Instead, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst traded up four spots in the first round to draft the 21-year-old Love even with four years remaining on the contract of arguably the best player in franchise history.

Rodgers skipped his scheduled appearance on McAfee’s show.

“That’s when I went and poured myself a little glass of Añejo and waited for somebody to call me,” he told The Athletic last week.

The Packers knew Rodgers wouldn’t be happy about the selection, and to protect the relationship between him and head coach Matt LaFleur, they told him the decision to draft Love was strictly the GM’s.

“I had friends who said, ‘Hey, Matt looked super excited when they made the draft pick,’” Rodgers said. “And I said, ‘I don’t care, honestly.’ Like, they made the pick. They all signed off on it.”

The drafting of Love proved to be the tipping point in the tumultuous, highly successful and nearly two-decade-long marriage between Rodgers and the Packers, even if it took years before the final separation. Last month, three years after Green Bay selected Love — and one year after Rodgers signed a record-breaking contract extension after back-to-back MVP seasons — the Packers shipped Rodgers to the New York Jets, like fellow Packers icon Brett Favre before him, for a small bounty of draft picks.

As recently as last offseason, Gutekunst said he intended for Rodgers to play at least the 2022 and ’23 seasons in Green Bay. As recently as last July, Rodgers said he wanted to retire with the only team for which he had ever played. But the drafting of Love contributed to a simmering resentment and caused a legendary franchise and a franchise legend to conclude a divorce was coming.

The 39-year-old Rodgers is perhaps the most skilled passer in NFL history but also a bit of an enigma and/or diva, depending on your rooting interest. He’s no stranger to using slights as motivation, as he did for years after his boyhood team, the San Francisco 49ers, took quarterback Alex Smith No. 1 overall in 2005 instead of him.

“Did I wanna, years down the line, go, ‘Well, what if we had just taken somebody who could impact our team because we had just gone to the NFC Championship?’ Yeah, of course,” Rodgers said of the Packers’ decision to draft Love. “I don’t think any other competitor would say anything different.”

In 2020, Rodgers completed a career-high 70.7 percent of his passes for 4,299 yards and a career-best 48 touchdowns against only five interceptions. He was named the league’s MVP for the first time since 2014, but the Packers narrowly lost to the Buccaneers, 31-26, in the NFC Championship Game at Lambeau Field, leaving Green Bay one game short of the Super Bowl for the second consecutive season.

Rodgers’ comments in his Zoom press conference after that loss were ominous.

“A lot of guys’ futures, they’re uncertain,” he said then. “Myself included.”

Rodgers says now that after the Packers drafted Love, he thought he’d have one or two years left in Green Bay.

“We didn’t win the Super Bowl,” Rodgers said. “They had their guy in waiting. Unless things changed, I felt like — that’s why I said what I said — there was a possibility they were gonna move on.

“I knew that (Love) was always a possibility, that they would wanna go, ‘You know what? We tried hard. We tried to win a championship. We had a good team, but now it might be time to go with Jordan, move some contract stuff around and do that.’”

Rodgers had been on the other end of this, almost note for note.

At 21, he was a surprise No. 24 selection out of Cal in the 2005 draft but sat behind Favre for three seasons. In 2008, with Rodgers impressing behind the scenes and the Packers growing tired of Favre’s annual flirtations with retirement, Green Bay traded the 38-year-old to the Jets.

The major difference: Two of Favre’s campaigns with Rodgers on the bench were subpar, while Rodgers won MVPs with Love looking on in two of the last three seasons.

According to a source associated with the team who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the sensitive dynamics between the front office and the star quarterback, early in the 2021 offseason, Dunn, Rodgers’ agent, called Packers president Mark Murphy with a request: Fire Gutekunst or trade Rodgers. Murphy did neither. Months later, news broke that Rodgers wanted out of Green Bay, but the Packers held firm.

When asked about the demand last week, Rodgers deferred to Dunn, who did not reply to The Athletic’s request for comment.

Rodgers stayed away from the team until days before training camp in late July — and after, among other things, Gutekunst extended an olive branch by trading for wide receiver Randall Cobb, Rodgers’ best friend and former longtime teammate.

“I was under contract, for one, so definitely wasn’t gonna hold out and let them fine me,” Rodgers said. “There were a lot of things that I was hoping were gonna change, and they made some promises about things they were gonna try and do better. But I just felt like coming back, have a good season, move forward and just not focus on some of those things that I really felt strongly about but that may or may not actually ever get done.”

After the first practice of camp, Rodgers aired his grievances, saying he wanted to see changes to the organization’s communication and culture. According to Rodgers, the communication between him and Gutekunst improved somewhat. (“It still wasn’t anywhere near what I’ve already enjoyed here with the Jets in just a few short weeks,” Rodgers added.)

The Packers believed privately that both parties had moved past the conflict, but Rodgers felt like executive VP and director of football operations Russ Ball, who manages the team’s salary cap, was the only member of the front office who took the message to heart.

“I mean, Russ definitely made an effort to be more seen, to be a better communicator, to be around more, to interact with the guys more, and I really appreciated his effort to grow and to listen to some of the things I was saying and try and make the culture and the place a better environment,” Rodgers said. “I thought Russ, more than anybody, really showed that he cared and showed a lot of personal growth, and I give him credit for that.”

In the 2021 regular season, Rodgers was exemplary again. He won his second consecutive MVP award and led the Packers to the No. 1 seed in the NFC, but the Packers fell to the 49ers in the divisional round at Lambeau Field. In postgame comments, Rodgers was once again noncommittal about his future.

The succession plan was going to be complicated.

Months later, there seemed to be clarity.

In March 2022, Rodgers signed a three-year, $150 million extension to keep him in Green Bay. Would Rodgers outlast his successor? Three years would seemingly allow Rodgers to retire as a Packer and would force the team to make a tough decision on Love and his lapsing rookie contract, but closer examination revealed Rodgers’ deal to be a glorified one-year contract with two additional years tacked on.

Days later, the Packers traded Davante Adams, who had paired with Rodgers for eight prolific seasons, to the Raiders. Rodgers knew Adams wasn’t thrilled in Green Bay, but the quarterback thought his star receiver would stay.

Adams wanted to be the highest-paid receiver in league history, exceeding DeAndre Hopkins’ $27.25 million per year, and the Packers were willing to oblige — eventually. Rodgers believes now that the way negotiations were handled helped drive Adams away.

On a recent appearance on the “I Am Athlete” podcast, Adams said the initial offer from Green Bay, which the Packers made before the 2021 season, was less than $20 million annually.

“They offered him less money than Christian Kirk ($18 million per year) and (Adams) is going, ‘Are you serious right now? I’m the best receiver in the league, and you’re gonna offer me less than Christian Kirk?” Rodgers said. “With all due respect, he’s not on Davante’s level.

“I’m sure that the team will say that’s just the business of negotiation — it’s like, yeah, but you’re also sending a message to that guy, and a lot of times it can stick with guys and make them a little sour on things. … That goes back to the first offer that they made, and I don’t think (the Packers) had the foresight — obviously didn’t have the foresight.”

While shutting down negotiations during the 2021 season, Adams, like Rodgers, posted a second consecutive All-Pro campaign. “By the time he got to the end of it, I think he kind of made up his mind he was gonna go somewhere else,” Rodgers said.

Adams was shipped to the Raiders for a first-round pick and a second-rounder the Packers used to trade up for North Dakota State receiver Christian Watson in the 2022 draft. Suddenly, the All-Pro teammate Rodgers thought he’d have when he inked his name on his new deal was gone, replaced by an untested rookie.

Rodgers didn’t show up to voluntary OTAs after the team drafted Watson and fellow receivers Romeo Doubs and Samori Toure, among others. The quarterback didn’t feel like his presence was as important as the team did, saying any progress made during voluntary OTAs is “very nominal.”

According to the source associated with the team, the Packers weren’t satisfied with Rodgers’ commitment and effort, not only during voluntary OTAs but on a day-to-day basis afterward. Rodgers takes exception to the thought that the team wanted more from him in the months after giving him the richest contract in NFL history.

“When I’m in, I’m all-in, and you wanna ride with offseason workouts?” Rodgers said. “I won MVP without doing offseason workouts. Like, was my commitment any less then? I’d say not at all. The way that I come back to work, not just physically in good shape but mentally refreshed, is the best thing for me to have the season I wanted to have during those in Green Bay.

“I think that’s just a cop-out written to try and find something to disparage me about that, honestly, when you know what offseason workouts are really about, it’s completely ridiculous.”

On the first day of training camp last year, Rodgers told reporters he was “definitely” retiring a Packer. “Unless they trade me,” he said through a wide smile.

The 2022 season was an unpleasant one for the Packers, and not only because of any private displeasure they had with their quarterback. Rodgers played through a broken thumb suffered in Week 5, a young receiving corps made predictable mental errors and the defense underachieved. Ultimately, the campaign ended when the Packers lost at home to the Lions in Week 18, preventing a five-game win streak and what would have been a miraculous playoff berth.

“I showed up to work, I brought the same commitment, the same type of energy, and obviously there were some trying times and frustration as we went through that losing streak,” Rodgers said. “But we put on a strong run to finish the season and came up short.

“I feel good about the way I showed up for my guys every single week, and it’s convenient now to look at that, but it wasn’t a conversation when Russ and Matt and Brian and Mark would thank me for my speeches after games or the way I fought, played and different things. You can rewrite history all you want, but like I said, I still got the receipts.”

Rodgers said that a week after the season ended the Packers told him to take as much time as he wanted to make a decision about his future. “We want you to retire a Packer,” Rodgers said they told him. “We’ll figure everything else out, but we want you to be here.”

Gutekunst and Rodgers agreed to meet in person in Southern California, where Rodgers lives in the offseason and where Gutekunst was traveling in late January for the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, but they never connected while Gutekunst was out west.

“Life happens,” Rodgers says now. “When I hit him back, he was already out of town, but it wasn’t like I hit him back like five days later. He hit me up, like, in the morning of one day. I hit him up either the night or the next morning or the next day and then he was gone.

“It wasn’t like there was a date we were for sure meeting at this time and this place. It was like, ‘Hey, I’m coming out west. I’m driving, whatever, you wanna get together?’ I said ‘Yeah, I got a busy schedule. I’m working out, I got things going on, I got appearances, but I’d like to make it work, too.’”

A few weeks later, Rodgers went on his much-discussed darkness retreat to contemplate his future.

In March, at the NFL’s annual league meetings in Phoenix, Gutekunst told reporters he tried to contact Rodgers “many times” during the offseason to discuss how the quarterback fit into the team’s future, but that Rodgers proved too elusive to reach.

Asked about the two sides’ differing stories, Rodgers credited the disconnect to the Packers not using FaceTime to call him.

“I have zero or one bar at the house, so you call me — sometimes it goes through, most of the time it drops and doesn’t go through,” Rodgers said. “Everybody who knows me, when I’m out west, they know that’s how to get a hold of me. So you can say whatever you want about that, but that’s the f—— truth.

“Before I went in the darkness, I hit ’em up and said, ‘Hey, there’s some stuff swirling around here. We should get together, you, me and Matt.’”

Rodgers said he entered the darkness retreat thinking he would retire but emerged feeling good about either retiring or continuing to play. He contacted Dunn, who told Rodgers the Packers had been shopping him. Rodgers then told Dunn to tell Gutekunst he wanted to be traded to the Jets. He didn’t have much else to say to the GM.

“Did Brian text me more than I texted him? Yeah, but did I ghost him? No,” Rodgers said. “I texted him back. There was back-and-forths that we had and so this is the story you wanna go with? You’re gonna stand on this hill of austerity and say that arguably in the conversation of the best player in your franchise history, you’re gonna say I couldn’t get a hold of him and that’s why we had to move on?

“Like, c’mon man. Just tell the truth, you wanted to move on. You didn’t like the fact that we didn’t communicate all the time. Like, listen, I talk to the people that I like.”

The only aspect of this seismic transition that seems certain is this: It was time for the Packers and Rodgers to move on. Yes, this offseason served as a breaking point in their relationship, but the Packers also need to see what they have in the 24-year-old Love, who’s finally about to get his chance.

Thrust into the spotlight in Kansas City after Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19 in Week 9 of the 2021 season, Love completed 19 of 34 passes for 190 yards, one touchdown and an interception in his first start, a 13-7 loss.

But that afternoon is one of the reasons Gutekunst is encouraged about Love taking over. Why? Start with the 16 quarterback pressures the Packers allowed.

“We didn’t have a great plan for him there,” Gutekunst told The Athletic. “I thought the way he responded to that, the way he handled himself in the midst of that chaos in a tough time … I think it gave us confidence that he could stay poised in those moments.”

Love’s only meaningful regular-season snaps since then came in Week 12 last season, when Rodgers suffered a rib injury against the Eagles on “Sunday Night Football.” Love played the entire fourth quarter and, with the Eagles playing to protect their lead, completed 6 of 9 passes for 113 yards and a touchdown.

go-deeper

Gutekunst said he has seen improvement from Love over the past couple of offseasons when Rodgers wasn’t around and when Love took starter’s reps and ran practice last season with Rodgers nursing injuries.

But the Packers haven’t committed to him yet. Instead of exercising or declining Love’s fifth-year option, Green Bay signed him to a one-year extension that essentially gives Love a two-year trial run as the full-time starter on financial terms that benefit both parties.

“Until you get into that fire and you go through a bunch of different games and you see a bunch of different looks and you fail and then have a bunch of those scars and overcome them, you’re never really gonna know,” Gutekunst said. “But I think we all took a lot of confidence just with how he grew the last year and a half.”

go-deeper

Rodgers and Favre had a famously complicated relationship, with the elder quarterback chafing at the idea that he was obligated to mentor his potential successor. But according to Love, Rodgers has been a model teammate.

“I like Jordan a lot,” Rodgers says now. “Jordan’s a good dude. It’s tough to be a backup behind a future Hall of Famer. You’ve got to kinda find that sweet spot. I thought he did a great job with that, but he’s a good-hearted kid. It’s undetermined, his future, but from the physical standpoint, I thought he improved his fundamentals this last year.”

Rodgers, meanwhile, seems energized on the rebound with the Jets. And as he prepares to start with his new franchise, he can’t help but think back to his start in Green Bay, when after three seasons he took Favre’s job and never looked back.

“(Love) gets a chance to blaze his own trails, be his own man and lead in the way he best sees fit,” Rodgers said. “Take the good things he learned from me; things he would do differently, do ’em differently. That’s what I did when I took over.

“Obviously the team felt good with moving forward with him as the starter, and that’s how the team felt in 2008 with me after I showed in ’07 that I could get the job done. And history just repeated itself in that sense.”

MINNESOTA

WR JUSTIN JEFFERSON thinks it is time for a new contract.  Mike Florio ofProFootballTalk.com:

Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson‘s absence from offseason workouts isn’t accidental. He wants a new contract. He has earned a new contract. And he has no reason to show up without one.

The Vikings obviously want to give him a contract. The sticking points will be the amount and the structure.

When it comes to new money, Jefferson has every right to expect to re-set the market, surpassing the $30 million annual value of Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill‘s contract.

When it comes to structure, and as a league source explained it to PFT, the Vikings typically insist on a structure that entails injury guarantees that don’t become fully guaranteed until the year the money is earned. It gives the Vikings an annual out, as long as the player is healthy.

The Vikings broke that precedent for quarterback Kirk Cousins. Will they do it for Jefferson?

I asked a source involved in the Jefferson negotiations whether the Vikings’ guarantee structure will be an issue. The response was simple.

“We’ll see.”

Indeed we will.

Jefferson is currently the best receiver in the NFL. He gets open consistently, he catches everything thrown his way, and he holds onto the ball no matter how hard he’s being hit.

To get this done, the team likely needs to be willing to fully guarantee at least two if not three years of the deal. And the deal needs to pay plenty for one of the most important players on the team.

That’s the reality of scratching off a lottery ticket in the first round of the draft and having it hit. The jackpot eventually gets paid out by, not to, the winner.

The better the player, the bigger the jackpot.

– – –

Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com on the Vikings situation at running back where RB ALEXANDER MATTISON appears to be ascending.

The Vikings have not settled running back Dalvin Cook‘s status for the 2023 season at this point in the offseason, but the team took his picture out of their Twitter header and replaced it with one of Alexander Mattison.

Mattison has been the No. 2 back with Cook in recent years and this offseason has given him a chance to run with the first team while the team decides whether they will be moving on without Cook for the 2023 season. Head coach Kevin O’Connell didn’t update where things stand on that front during a Tuesday press conference, but he did have some praise for what he’s seen from Mattison in an expanded role.

“It’s been really good to see Alex Mattison take a few more reps and really show that all three-down kinda ownership that he’s been capable of for a long time,” O’Connell said.

Cook could be cut or traded with a post-June 1 designation or he could agree to a pay cut to stay with the Vikings if he thinks that offer would be more than he’d receive on the open market. Given where we are in the calendar, some clarity should come in the near future.

NFC SOUTH

NEW ORLEANS

Jon Gruden knows QB DAVID CARR, so the Saints brought him in for a visit.  Katherine Terrell of ESPN.com:

New Orleans Saints coach Dennis Allen said that a visit with former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden doesn’t foreshadow any major overhaul of the team’s offense.

Gruden attended several practices last week and visited with the Saints’ offensive coaches and quarterbacks as they went through their first full week of offseason practices. Allen said that the main purpose of the visit was to pick Gruden’s brain about new Saints quarterback Derek Carr, who played under Gruden from 2018 until Gruden resigned as head coach of the Raiders in 2021.

“Obviously, Jon’s a guy that has a lot of experience with Derek and Derek has had his most success under Jon Gruden,” Allen said at the conclusion of the Saints’ practice session Tuesday.

“And so, we felt like bringing him in, having a chance to sit down and visit with him as an offensive staff, with the quarterbacks and just getting some new thoughts and ideas of things we might be able to implement. I would say this, I would say, offensively for a long time that I’ve been here, we’ve been pretty effective. So, I don’t see us putting in a whole new offense or doing something dramatic. But if there’s a few ideas that we could take from that, we felt like that would be beneficial.”

Saints rookie quarterback Jake Haener said the biggest takeaway from the meeting was talking about what had worked for Carr and Gruden when they worked together in the past.

“They obviously wanted to bring him in to see what Derek does well and what he thought Derek did well, just to help them get a feel for him as a player, because obviously he’s a new person in the building and they want to do what Derek does well. I think that was the biggest thing, just getting a different perspective and a different mind,” Haener said. “Obviously it’s very interesting to hear from a guy that’s really successful and has been successful. … I definitely got something out of it. He liked the way I threw the ball.”

Gruden has been out of the league since he resigned in 2021 following a report that emails he wrote over a 10-year period included racist, misogynistic and anti-gay language.

Carr spoke to the media shortly after Gruden resigned and said that it was a day that included emotions of anger and frustration.

“It was a lot to handle, I’ll say it that way,” Carr said at the time. “You all know me, man. I don’t condone that kind of talk. I don’t talk that way. My kids sure as heck will never talk that way and it’s hard because I love the man so much.”

Allen said that he didn’t have concerns about any backlash surrounding Gruden’s visit and said it was something they’ve done with several coaches over the years. He said everyone involved came away with a positive experience.

“No, look, you ask everybody that was involved and they thought it was really beneficial for our football team,” Allen said. “And look, we’re going to look at any avenue that we can to try to improve. So that was one area we thought, just bringing him in and having the opportunity to sit down and visit with him, would help us.”

Said Saints quarterback Jameis Winston: “I just think anytime you get one of the greatest minds in NFL history to come in and spend some time with you, you just soak up everything that you can possibly soak up. I just think his presence and his approach to the game is something I really took in.”

When we saw this story we wondered where Gruden’s lawsuit against the NFL stood, and it seems the Nevada Supreme Court agreed to an NFL stalling action back in January.  This from March, where the NFL demands that Roger Goodell arbitrate Gruden’s complaints about The Commissioner and his league:

Lawyers for the NFL said former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden’s lawsuit against the league should be settled through arbitration because provisions of his contract and the NFL Constitution apply to him as a former employee.

The arbitration issue has made its way to the Nevada Supreme Court. Lawyers for the NFL are appealing a Clark County District Court judge’s ruling siding with Gruden.

Gruden resigned from the Raiders on Oct. 11, 2021, after emails surfaced showing he used racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments. A New York Times investigation revealed Gruden had not only used racist comments in an email in 2011, but had regularly used derogatory language in emails during his employment with ESPN.

Lawyers for the NFL have continued to push to settle Gruden’s lawsuit through arbitration — and not the public process of discovery. That process would likely reveal how and who leaked Gruden’s emails and other business-related information.

Jon Gruden, center, appears in court Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in Las Vegas. A Nevada judge heard a bid Wednesday by the National Football League to dismiss former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s lawsuit accusing the league of a “malicious and orchestrated campaign” including the leaking of offensive emails ahead of his resignation last October. (AP Photo/John Locher)

In their 72-page brief filed late Tuesday night, lawyers for the NFL claim the league’s governing documents and Gruden’s contact require the matter to be settled through arbitration before Goodell, documents said.

“The district court’s order denying the motion contravened settled law and the strong public policy in favor of enforcing arbitration agreements,” NFL attorneys wrote in the brief.

The attorneys argue Gruden was aware of the NFL’s arbitration provision as a longtime coach, they said.

“Federal, California, and Nevada public policy squarely favors the arbitration of claims as an alternative to litigation, and here the parties knowingly agreed to arbitrate their claims before the NFL Commissioner,” the NFL lawyers said.

Gruden received $60 million of his $100 million “record-setting” contract with the Raiders at the time of his resignation, lawyers for the NFL said. The NFL also said Gruden settled with the Raiders “for an additional undisclosed sum.”

A U.S. House Committee report released last year found The Washington Commanders leaked former Gruden’s emails, former Commanders president Bruce Allen told the panel.

“We didn’t do it at the league office,” an NFL executive reportedly told former team president Bruce Allen, according to his testimony, which is provided in the report. “It came out of their side.”

NFL lawyers previously wrote in documents filed in Gruden’s lawsuit against the league, denying Gruden’s “unsupported speculation” that the NFL and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell were the source of the leak, the 8 News Now Investigators reported last month.

Gruden’s lawyers have argued he is no longer under the NFL’s preview and that Goodell himself would be the arbitrator. The district court case is paused as the state supreme court awaits Gruden’s lawyers’ response.

TAMPA BAY

QBs BAKER MAYFIELD and KYLE TRASK are splitting time at Buccaneers OTAs.  It’s not going well per James Dator of SBNation.com:

I don’t care who you’re set to have under center in 2023 — it’s not going to be worse than Tampa Bay. Hell, we could reverse history and remove Aaron Rodgers from the Jets and I’m not sure Zach Wilson would look worse than what Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask are doing at OTAs for the Buccaneers.

Watching Mayfield and Trask throw rudimentary passes is akin to witnessing a baby’s first steps. They have the general idea down, but you know it’s about to be funny every time. If Russell Wilson is “cooking,” then Mayfield and Trask are like watching the kids on Masterchef Junior light a towel on fire and scream until Gordon Ramsey saves them. I mean, just look at this ball in relation to where the receiver is.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1663569935300173825

We already knew the Buccaneers had the stinkiest quarterback room in the NFL this year, but watching it play out is surreal.

NFC WEST

ARIZONA

Mike Florio planting a seed for USC QB CALEB WILLIAMS.

The Cardinals are on track to be among one of the worst teams in the NFL this year. Their handling of the cap consequences of the decision to release receiver DeAndre Hopkins shows they’re willing to embrace the suck.

So if the Cardinals (or the Texans, whose first-round pick the Cardinals own) end up earning the first overall pick in the draft, the Cardinals could be inclined to move on from quarterback Kyler Murray and select USC quarterback Caleb Williams.

But what if Williams isn’t interested in playing for the Cardinals?

The franchise has made more than a few headlines in recent months, from their Bart Simpson-style NFLPA report card to the arbitration claim filed by former executive Terry McDonough to the shameful response to it to the Jonathan Gannon tampering fiasco to the general sense of malaise around the team, new uniforms or not.

From Williams’s perspective, he’s making pretty good NIL money at USC. He doesn’t have to declare for the draft in 2024. And he could make it clear to the Cardinals that he just won’t do it if they’re going to be the team in position to pick him.

He also could simply refuse to play for them, living off his NIL money for a year and re-entering the draft.

Regardless, the new reality of the NCAA gives high-end players power unlike any they have ever had. Williams could be the first one to use that power, and the Cardinals could be the first team that power is used against.

This is how much QB BRYCE YOUNG is making as a reference to compare what Williams is getting in cold, hard NIL cash from USC.

The projected contract for the No. 1 pick in 2023 is roughly $41,217,000 in total value, with an estimated signing bonus of $26,976,000 and a 2023 cap of $7,494,000, according to Spotrac.

This is what Williams is reported to have made in 2022 from the Trojans:

Caleb Williams, QB, USC

Not content with deposing Rattler at Oklahoma, Caleb Williams has risen above him in the NIL valuation rankings following his transfer to USC. An example of the controversy surrounding NIL, Williams was reportedly offered $1 million by one school upon entering the transfer portal. His value has already outstripped that offer since arriving in Southern California.

With deals including Beats by Dre, Hawkins Way Capital, and Fanatics, Williams is worth an estimated $2.4 million. He’s also a part owner of a men’s grooming company.

He is apparently up to $2.6 million now.  How high could/would the Trojans go to keep him in 2024?

It’s not room, board and books anymore and the NFL first overall deal is nowhere near what someone like Matthew Stafford or Sam Bradford hauled in.

AFC WEST

LAS VEGAS

QB JIMMY GAROPPOLO will not collect big money if he has another foot problem.  Paul Gutierrez of ProSports.com:

An addendum to Jimmy Garoppolo’s contract with the Las Vegas Raiders was a waiver that took the place of the quarterback taking a physical with the team, according to a copy of the deal obtained by multiple outlets.

“In the absence of this waiver, [Garoppolo] would not pass the club’s physical examination because of a preexisting medial and middle cuneiform and a fracture of the base of the second metatarsal in the player’s left foot,” the addendum read.

The provision, titled Addendum G, was initially reported by Pro Football Talk and later posted on social media by NFL Network.

The waiver addresses the foot injury that a source said Garoppolo underwent surgery for shortly after he signed his three-year, $72.75 million contract with the Raiders on March 17.

According to Pro Football Talk, the Raiders could terminate Garoppolo’s contract for any reason related to the waiver and that Garoppolo will not be paid any of his $22.5 million base salary for the 2023 season until he passes a physical. The waiver is voided if Garoppolo remains with the Raiders for two days after their final game of the 2023 season, according to the copy posted by NFL Network.

Garoppolo’s introductory news conference with the Raiders in March was postponed a day, though the quarterback dismissed that his foot injury — suffered while playing for the San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 4 — was the cause.

“No worry,” Garoppolo said March 18, when asked if his injury held up the signing. “I mean it was just talking, language, things like that. But no, both sides, I think, knew what we wanted to get done, so it was very collaborative actually. Just us coming together.”

Garoppolo has not been on the field during organized team activities. While coach Josh McDaniels would not confirm whether Garoppolo had surgery, he did say there were no surprises in the quarterback’s “process” in Las Vegas.

McDaniels said it “could be” training camp when Garoppolo first takes the field.

“But everything that’s happened since we signed Jimmy, we knew ahead of time,” McDaniels said. “So we had an awareness of all of it. And again, our preference is to not push and rush anybody back at this point in time. Could we? I mean, you could make that decision. It’s just, I think the most important time of the year is going to happen when we get to training camp so that we’re ready to go and we can do the work we need to do in August.”

Veteran quarterback Brian Hoyer has been working with the first-team offense in OTAs. The Raiders also have Aidan O’Connell, whom they drafted in the fourth round out of Purdue, and Chase Garbers on their roster.

And if Garoppolo can’t go, will the Raiders turn to an owner like the Rams with Warren Beaty in “Heaven Can Wait”?  That’s what John Breach of CBSSports.com thinks:

The Las Vegas Raiders might want to start putting together a handy list of all the available quarterbacks out there, because there seems to be a chance that they might need to add a QB before the start of the season.

Their current starting quarterback is Jimmy Garoppolo, but there’s no guarantee he’s going to be ready to play in 2023. When Garoppolo signed with the team in March, he technically failed his physical due to an injured left foot, but the Raiders gave him an injury waiver and signed him anyway.

As noted by PFT, the two sides added an addendum to Garoppolo’s contract that allows the Raiders to cut him at NO COST if he can’t pass a physical. On the other hand, if he does pass a physical, Garoppolo will still need to play in at least one game without re-injuring his foot before the rest of his $22.5 million salary for 2023 becomes guaranteed.

Garoppolo, who underwent surgery in March, originally injured the foot while playing for the 49ers in Week 15 (Dec. 4) last season and almost six months later, the injury is still lingering.

Garoppolo’s injury isn’t a huge issue for the Raiders right now, but if we get to late July or early August and he’s still not on the field, then it becomes a problem. If the Raiders have to look into adding another QB, there aren’t many options in free agency, but there is ONE GUY.

Here’s a short list of QB options the Raiders could look starting with Tom Brady:

    Tom Brady. The seven-time Super Bowl winner is in the process of buying a piece of the Raiders, which could actually complicate things if he wants to return to the NFL. If Brady becomes an owner, he’d need the other owners to unanimously approve him as a player before he could suit up. Also, there has been a report that the owners might include a stipulation in Brady’s purchase that would forbid him from playing as long as he owned a stake in the the team. This essentially means that if Brady gets approved as a part owner, it will become very difficult for him to play for the Raiders. However, he hasn’t been approved yet and he could simply drop out of the purchase if he was serious about playing another season. Also, let’s not forget that Brady actually WANTED to play for the Raiders at one point. Back in 2020, Brady to Vegas was apparently a done deal, but then Jon Gruden decided at the last second that he didn’t want to go through with adding Brady.

    Carson Wentz. If the Raiders can’t land Brady, they could turn to Carson Wentz. The former Eagles QB hasn’t been great over the past few years, but if you’re in the month of August with no quarterback, he becomes an enticing option. However, the Raiders could shy away from Wentz because, like Garoppolo, he has a long history of injuries, including last season when he missed multiple games due to a broken finger. If Wentz plays in 2023, he’ll be on his fourth team in four years.

    Matt Ryan. The former NFL MVP is now working with us here at CBS Sports and although he’s not retired, the Raiders would probably have to make an extremely generous contract offer to lure him back to the NFL.

    Teddy Bridgewater. The former first-round pick has already spent one season in the AFC West (2021 with Denver) and he’d likely jump at the chance to do it again if the Raiders came calling.

    Make a trade. If the Raiders can’t find a QB they like in free agency, they could look to make a trade for one. The Panthers might be willing to part ways with Andy Dalton once Bryce Young officially wins the starting job. Also, the Raiders could call the Commanders about possibly making a deal for Jacoby Brissett, who spent his rookie season in 2016 with Raiders coach Josh McDaniels while both were in New England.

The Raiders do have three other quarterbacks on their roster right now in Brian Hoyer, Chase Garbers and rookie Aidan O’Connell, but it’s highly unlikely they’d feel comfortable going into the season with one of those three guys as their starter.

The Raiders probably wouldn’t start calling around for a quarterback until July and that’s only if Garoppolo’s foot isn’t healing as fast as it should, but this will definitely be something to keep an eye on.

We just realized that it has been 45 years since the release of “Heaven Can Wait” so some of you may not be familiar with the plot involving the Rams first Super Bowl victory:

Heaven Can Wait is a 1978 American sports fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Warren Beatty and Buck Henry about a young man (played by Beatty) being mistakenly taken to heaven by his guardian angel, and the resulting complications of how this mistake can be undone, given that his earthly body has been cremated. It was the second film adaptation of Harry Segall’s play of the same name, the first being Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941).

– – –

Joe Pendleton, a backup quarterback for the American football team Los Angeles Rams, is looking forward to leading his team to the Super Bowl. While he is riding his bicycle through a tunnel, an overzealous guardian angel on his first assignment, known only as The Escort, sees a large truck heading into the other end of the tunnel towards Joe. The Escort plucks Joe out of his body early in the mistaken belief that Joe was about to be killed.

Once in the afterlife, Joe refuses to believe that his time was up, and upon investigation, Mr. Jordan (the Escort’s supervisor) discovers that Joe was going to just narrowly miss the truck and he was not destined to die until March 20, 2025, at 10:17 AM. Unfortunately, his body has already been cremated, so a new body must be found for him. After rejecting several possible men who are about to die, Joe is persuaded to accept the body of a multi-millionaire industrialist. Leo Farnsworth has just been drugged and drowned in his bathtub by his cheating gold digger wife Julia Farnsworth and her lover Tony Abbott, Farnsworth’s personal secretary.

Julia and Tony are confused when Leo reappears alive and well, and Farnsworth’s domestic staff is confused by the changes in some of his habits and tastes. Still obsessed with his football destiny, Farnsworth/Joe buys the Rams to lead them to the Super Bowl as their quarterback. To succeed, he must first convince and then secure the help of a longtime friend and trainer Max Corkle to get his new body in shape.

We will spare you the rest of the plot…

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

Everyone looks for a franchise QB, but then, at some point they have to pay him and that’s when things get tricky.  Lindsey Thiry of ESPN.com on the Chargers and that equation.

For more than a decade, a three-ring royal blue binder labeled “Peyton Manning” sat on the office bookcase of Los Angeles Chargers general manager Tom Telesco.

Telesco grew so accustomed to seeing the binder on his shelf, he stopped seeing it at all.

Inside, Telesco had penned meticulous notes during his time as the Indianapolis Colts’ director of player personnel. He had a front-row seat as Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian orchestrated two contract extensions with Manning while also finding a way to field a Super Bowl-winning roster around his quarterback.

Telesco didn’t discard the binder when he became a first-time general manager for the Chargers in 2013, but he didn’t reference it often, either.

“I didn’t have it really thinking, ‘I’m going to need this with another job.’ I just thought this is stuff I really need to drill down on,” Telesco said, adding, “I didn’t even think of pulling it out.”

Until he did.

With Justin Herbert’s continued ascent and the impending explosion of the quarterback market, it became all but certain this past fall that the Chargers would enter negotiations with the 2020 sixth overall pick on a long-term extension when he became eligible after the season.

“I pulled it out, started flipping through it,” Telesco said. “And I’m like, thank God I have this.”

The binder is a manual on how to navigate a quarterback contract extension that will consume a significant portion of the salary cap, while also building a team capable of a deep playoff or Super Bowl run.

“Some of it doesn’t apply anymore,” Telesco said, noting the change in the rookie pay scale implemented in 2011 to provide consistency among salaries and address excessive paydays for new pros. “But there’s still some things in there that I’ve written down that I’ve learned that like, yeah, this definitely is going to apply.”

Telesco and the Chargers are among several NFL front offices navigating how to retain young franchise quarterbacks and simultaneously build a playoff-caliber team around them. General managers, coaches and agents from around the league talked to ESPN about how to achieve it and the risks of doing it wrong.

After Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts agreed to a five-year, $255 million extension that included $180 million guaranteed, and contentious negotiations between the Baltimore Ravens and Lamar Jackson ended with Jackson agreeing to a five-year, $260 million extension with $185 million guaranteed, Herbert and Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow are likely up next.

“When you’re paying someone like we’re going to pay this quarterback, he’s making people better,” Chargers coach Brandon Staley said of Herbert. “Not the other way around.”

Determining whether a quarterback is capable of leading a team to a Super Bowl is the first hurdle. The next is ensuring he has enough talent surrounding him to get there.

“It’s really a factor. It’s a very real situation,” Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said of reworking a roster around a significant quarterback extension. “The dynamics of the structure of your roster shifts.

“You really have to be creative and you really have to be fortunate in mixing the makeup of the roster to make it work.”

TOM BRADY, WHO retired with seven Super Bowl rings, and Patrick Mahomes, with two titles over the past four seasons, haven’t just skewed expectations for quarterback play on the field.

They’ve proved to be the outliers off it.

Each signed what some have labeled “team-friendly” contracts. Brady’s deal equated to less money, and Mahomes agreed to a deal that spread a then-record-breaking extension over a long period, in an effort to help manage the salary cap.

So, how do you keep your quarterback financially content and build a team for long-term success?

“You’ve got to have a quarterback who understands the business and who’s willing to ultimately have those conversations with his agent and us to find a deal that takes care of him, gives him the guarantees and the money he needs,” Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane said.

Brady, in 23 NFL seasons, didn’t attract headlines with record-shattering contracts. He retired after the longest career in league history with $317 million in career earnings, according to Over the Cap, not including endorsement deals or the reported 10-year, $375 million contract he signed with Fox Sports to be a broadcaster in retirement.

Stars naturally gravitated toward playing with Brady, but it didn’t hurt when courting wide receiver Randy Moss in 2007 and signing cornerback Darrelle Revis in 2014 that Brady’s contract helped allow for their deals.

As he attempted to earn a seventh Super Bowl ring in Tampa, his first without the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick, Brady signed a two-year deal in 2020 with an average of $25 million per year guaranteed.

“Tom always took team-friendly deals to continue to surround himself with guys to help him win,” Tennessee Titans general manager Ran Carthon said. “So it’s one of those things that is based on the organization and that person in that role to help you figure out how you’re going to continue to build a team.”

Mahomes and Kansas City agreed to an eye-popping $503 million deal after he led the Chiefs to a Super Bowl in 2020. The extension spans 10 years — an unusual contract length by NFL standards.

“Some people, they might say he is underpaid,” Carthon said about Mahomes, who averages $45 million per season. “But you know, he has it figured out and it’s cap-friendly and allows them to keep their guys and keep signing guys.”

Mahomes’ salary ranks seventh among the league’s quarterbacks, but he said he wasn’t concerned about money at Chiefs OTAs last week.

“Me, my agent and the team, always keep open communication and we try and do whatever is best for the team, but obviously I want to do the best for myself as well,” Mahomes said. “But at the same time, I want to — I’ve always said I worry about legacy and winning rings more than making money at this moment.”

Chris Cabott, CEO of Equity Sports, represents Mahomes and several other NFL quarterbacks.

In Cabott’s experience, multiple factors come into play when executing a quarterback extension, including whether there is stability in ownership and coaching, along with a nucleus of players who can help a team to a Super Bowl.

If those criteria aren’t in place, a long-term extension — like one that spans 10 seasons — might not be best.

But if they are?

“You can have it all,” Cabott said about the dynamic between a quarterback and team when negotiating an extension. “You can have the big contract and you can keep winning. It just takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of trust and takes a lot of communication.

“You can’t win the game by yourself, so you have to be diligent about everything around you, but that should never be at the mercy of the compensation or the guarantees.”

It wasn’t long after Mahomes and the Chiefs struck their deal that Beane and quarterback Josh Allen played a round of golf together and the conversation turned to contracts.

“He and I talked a little bit about the pros and cons of that [Mahomes] deal and just some broad strokes of it,” Beane said. “And we talked about Tom Brady and the championships he won, and so that’s where it gets tough, because, yes, you want to be fairly compensated and it’s not good for the team to get you on some deal that’s not fair to you either because you’re going to be unhappy and that doesn’t work.”

A year after Mahomes’ extension and on the heels of an AFC championship appearance, Allen signed a six-year, $258 million contract.

“Josh was very adamant about — ‘I’ll work with my people and yes I want to be recognized — there’s a respect thing — but I also [want] to win and I want to be able to keep player X, player Y,'” Beane said. “Now, if I do that and then I don’t back it up and I’m losing some of the guys that he thinks can help us win or we’re going cheap now, we’re probably going to have a problem.”

THERE ARGUABLY IS no task more difficult in the NFL than finding a franchise quarterback.

“If you’ve got a quarterback, you’re excited,” Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said. “If you don’t, you’re excited to go find them.”

That alone gives quarterbacks leverage when negotiating an extension, because when a team has a good quarterback, let alone a great one who has made the playoffs and had success, he will command record-breaking money.

It’s known as the “pay-me-or-else mentality,” one AFC executive said. It dares the organization to attempt the alternative and find a new quarterback, knowing there’s zero guarantee how that will turn out.

Ask the Washington Commanders.

In 2018, Washington would not sign quarterback Kirk Cousins to an extension after he played two seasons on the franchise tag. Cousins reached free agency and signed a three-year, fully guaranteed $84 million deal with the Vikings, who have made two playoff appearances with him since.

The Commanders, meanwhile, have been in search of a quarterback ever since — starting 12 players at the position in four seasons, all void of a winning record.

For the team, there is some pushback available: The most compelling way is to convince a quarterback he can achieve long-term success like Brady and Mahomes by taking a deal that, over time, will help him earn more by way of career success, longevity and endorsements.

“You got to know that there’s some give-and-take that when you come across one of the great ones and you have to ultimately pay that high dollar number, you have to go along with the give-and-take of it,” Carthon said. “There are teams that have figured it out.”

But the question for many teams is getting the message to their quarterback, because agents oversee most contract negotiations, and their job is to get their client paid.

It could be perceived, with each deal richer than the last regardless of results, that some agents are mostly out for the money and are less concerned about the team’s ability to field a great product around their player.

“The agent just wants bragging rights on getting the most money,” one NFC executive said.

But Drew Rosenhaus, owner of Rosenhaus Sports Representation whose extensive client list boasts some of the NFL’s top playmakers outside of the quarterback position, offered an alternative view.

“As an agent you try to balance it,” Rosenhaus said. “You want to get the best deal for your client, but you’re also interested in going to the right circumstance.”

For the Mahomes deal, it was a giant puzzle that included not only putting a contract together but examining what each piece meant to the puzzle — it was about being paid what he earned but also about setting the organization up for long-term success.

“For any quarterback at the end of the day, what your career is going to be measured by is ‘Did you win? Did you win Super Bowls?’ And if you can win multiple, you join a very, very exclusive club where obviously Tom Brady is at the top of the mountain” Cabott said.

Said Beane: “You got to think about your legacy, your career and the more money you take … the less I can do to put weapons around you.”

THE EAGLES SET the market with Hurts’ deal. The Ravens followed, paying Jackson a little bit more. Now, the Chargers and Bengals are chasing an ever-increasing number.

For Herbert and Burrow, it’s possible one is waiting for the other, knowing he will get a little more.

And many executives hope their quarterback is different.

“At least in our situation, I don’t think I need to have that talk with our quarterback. I think he’s fully aware, has really good self-awareness on how much money he is going to make, how it affects the team,” Telesco said. “But like most agents will tell you, like, it’s my job to figure out how to make sure that the player gets the value that he deserves and we build a team around him.”

Herbert acknowledged seeing Hurts’ and Jackson’s new deals, but deferred to his representation when asked about the balance of getting paid and building a Super Bowl-caliber cast around him.

Justin Herbert is scheduled to earn $4.23 million and $29.5 million in the final two seasons of his rookie deal. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

“That’s the great thing about the people that I hired to work on my behalf is, I kind of leave it up to them because they’re the experts and I don’t know nearly enough about those negotiations, about those extensions,” Herbert said. “… I have to be the best quarterback that I can be … but obviously putting your input and making sure that everyone knows exactly what you would like from the situation.”

Even with a recent influx of massive salaries, which included signing cornerback J.C. Jackson and trading for outside linebacker Khalil Mack last year, the Chargers have vowed all the moves have been made with the understanding their quarterback would be earning a significant, if not record-breaking, extension — the type of deal they completed for outside linebacker Joey Bosa and safety Derwin James Jr. to pay them at the top of the market.

Across town in Los Angeles, the Rams have navigated several quarterback situations during the six-season tenure of coach Sean McVay, whose teams have reached the Super Bowl with a quarterback playing on a rookie deal — Jared Goff, who earned $3 million in 2018 — and with a veteran quarterback — Matthew Stafford, who in 2021 was playing the final season of a five-year, $135 million extension that he signed with the Detroit Lions prior to his trade to L.A.

“Whether you have a quarterback on a rookie contract — when we had Jared and the things that you were able to do, certainly it frees up finances, cash, cap, things like that that do make it a little bit easier to surround them with some of those great players,” McVay said. “But then there’s examples where you say you get a guy like a Matthew Stafford, you pay a player like Jared Goff because the importance of that position, and if that means you have to be disciplined in other areas you know, that’s what you have to be able to do.”

Telesco long maintained ahead of opening negotiations with Herbert that he does not subscribe to the theory that championship-caliber teams can only — or most easily — be constructed with quarterbacks on rookie contracts.

During the salary cap era, albeit ahead of the rookie wage scale, he watched it happen in Indianapolis, when Manning in 2004 signed the richest contract in NFL history — a $99.2 million, seven-year deal that paid a league-record $14.17 million annually — then two seasons later, led the Colts to a Super Bowl title.

“We’ve seen all sorts of teams do it and do it successfully,” Telesco said. “The team I came from did it and did it successfully.”

He might have spent years overlooking that binder, an artifact from when he was an understudy.

But he’s certainly thankful to have it now.

Along with a quarterback who will be paid

AFC SOUTH

JACKSONVILLE

Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com on the return of WR CALVIN RIDLEY:

The Jaguars are taking it easy with receiver Calvin Ridley in his return to football.

Head coach Doug Pederson said Tuesday he’s limiting Ridley’s reps in some drills and team work throughout organized team activities and the upcoming mandatory minicamp but will clear Ridley for full participation once training camp begins.

“He hasn’t played in a while plus the injury [broken foot in 2021], so we’re just trying to be careful with him,” Pederson said. “He’s the type of guy that you have to pump the brakes with. He wants to go so much and so fast and so hard out there at practice that we just have to pump the brakes and just tell him, ‘Hey, now now’s not the time.’

“But he’s doing a great job. He’s picking up the offense well. The times that he’s working with Trevor [Lawrence] on the same page they’re connecting, and those are good things to see right now in the offseason.”

Ridley said Tuesday he understands the approach but admitted it’s hard for him to take some reps off.

“I only really know one speed, but I got to gradually get my body back to football, like football and be peaking into the season, not out here [in OTAs],” he said. “Of course I expected I would be a little rusty because you can’t really get ready for this. I mean the heat, the helmet. Just running every day is what it really is because you get sore. I’ve got to make sure I build and not be sore in the season.”

Ridley hasn’t played in an NFL game since Oct. 24, 2021, when he was with the Atlanta Falcons. In March 2022, he was suspended for all of last season after an investigation found that he bet on NFL games over a five-day stretch in November 2021.

Ridley, who was acquired by the Jaguars from the Falcons at last season’s trading deadline, was reinstated March 6.