Dear Aaron Rodgers: Claim a portion of the gross income

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers doesn’t like me very much. The good thing is. I still think he’s a great quarterback, and I’d still like him to get a lot over $ 22 million a year from the Packers, especially with the Falcons now paying Matt Ryan $ 30 million a year. .

Rodgers won’t say it, of course. He knows it wouldn’t be very well received by fans who are much more inclined (inexplicably) to side with billionaires who don’t play the game versus millionaires who do. So when he opened up about his contract with NBC’s Peter King Football morning in America, Rodgers chose his words very, very carefully, grossly downplaying a contractual situation that has become clearly embarrassing.

“It’s only in my mind because. . . people have written and talked about it a lot, ”Rodgers first told King. “There have been many conversations about this. “

(So ​​basically if people hadn’t written or talked about this Rodgers wouldn’t have noticed the parade of lower quarterbacks consistently passing him over the past couple of years, from Andrew Luck to Derek Carr to Matthew Stafford. to Jimmy Garoppolo to Kirk Cousins ​​to Matt Ryan? Sorry, but that’s just not believable.)

“I think there is merit in looking for where you make a non-traditional contractual arrangement,” Rodgers added. “If anyone at this point is able to do something like this, I think there has to be a conversation about it. I never said anything about [tying the contract to] Hood. I just think there are ways to get deals where you can still be competitive so the team is happy with that but has a little more freedom.

This appears to be an implicit acknowledgment from the report that Rodgers may be looking for some sort of clause that gives Rodgers a way to rescind his deal prematurely, if / when (when) it is exceeded again. And that’s probably not something the Packers would ever do, not when they can squat on top of him for the next four years (two under his contract and two under the franchise label), at a good average payout. lower than current market value.

Here’s an idea, inspired by the news that the Packers made $ 454.9 million in gross revenue and $ 34 million in profit: Rodgers should base his total salary not on the salary cap but on the money that this listed company wins.

Of course, if it is based on net income, creative accounting will ensure that there is no net income. So why not ask for a share of the crude?

If Rodgers really is so valuable to the Packers (and he is), why not reward him accordingly? And without a billionaire owner able to direct those millions of profits into his or her safe, why not make sure that some of the profits go to whoever is most responsible for generating them?