Aaron Rodgers Trade ideas

[Fear The Chorizo]

What gets lost on this timing question is the fact teams can announce they have trades in place well before the new league year starts in mid-March. Last year, I think the Stafford/Goff trade between the Rams and Lions had already been agreed to in principle before last year's Super Bowl - those transactions aren't official until the 1st day of the 2021 league year in mid-March 2021 as well, but the cap semantics and roster planning started shaking out well before that.

 

Specific to the Packers, that likely means if Rodgers wants out and the Packers trade him, the trade will be announced in principle well before the new league year starts, likely giving his new team time to negotiate a new contract as well. For the Packers, that event would likely trigger many of the veteran cuts/restructures that will also be necessary to both get well under the 2022 cap and retool the roster. One other cap figure that will be sure to be reduced even while keeping a core player on this roster longterm is Jaire Alexander by giving him a new deal - his current 5th year option amount of ~$13-14M will be reduced by inking him to a longterm extension with a huge signing bonus and then structuring his contract so his 2022 salary is peanuts and spreading the amount of his signing bonus across 4-6 seasons capwise. If all this happens, GB will have ample space to franchise Adams if they need to prior to trading him before the draft.

 

The other option, of course, is for Rodgers to want to return along with inking Adams to a new contract - that would also likely mean a restructured/new Rodgers contract and a new Adams contract, both which would pay them big upfront signing bonus money so their 2022 salaries are much lower and spreading signing bonus $ out across a few future cap years to make the salary cap shell game fit for this next year. This would all be done in principle ahead of the 1st day of the new league year, when all those figures go into effect.