Green Bay Packers Reportedly Still Believe They Can Sign Aaron Jones w/ Less Guaranteed Money

Last Wednesday was the deadline for teams to apply the franchise tag to a player if they were going to use it for the 2021 season. In the Green Bay Packers’ case, the only real candidate to receive the tag was running back Aaron Jones. But as the deadline passed, no such thing occurred.

While Jones and the Packers have reportedly been in extension talks for over a year now, many are under the assumption that Jones will be playing elsewhere in 2021. However, shortly after the deadline to use the franchise tag passed, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Green Bay would still try to sign Jones to a multi-year deal before free agency opened.

Then on Sunday, in a joint article by Jeremy Fowler and Dan Graziano of ESPN ($), they too reported that the Packers were still trying to re-sign Jones, but added the nugget that Green Bay still “believes” that they can get him for less guaranteed money than what he may earn on the open market.

If you recall, back in December, ESPN’s Rob Demovsky reported that in terms of average annual value, Green Bay had offered Jones a deal that would make him one of the five highest-paid running backs in the league. But ultimately, Jones turned that contract offer down because of the lack of guaranteed money.

Just this past week, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported that the Green Bay Packers were in the $9 million per year range in terms of their offer to Jones. However, there are plenty of rumors suggesting that Jones will earn $12 million per year or even more in free agency.

If anything, the two sides have been working diligently over the last 12 months or so to get a deal done, but in the final days before free agency opens, based on what we know, the two sides still seem pretty far off in negotiations. From the outside looking in, it appears that someone is going to have to cave if a deal is going to be completed.

From the Green Bay Packers’ perspective, it’s easy to see why they are working so hard to bring Jones back; he’s been an extremely important part of this offense and is a perfect fit for Matt LaFleur’s system. He can line up just about anywhere in the formation and has totaled almost 2,200 rushing yards the last two seasons at over five yards per carry with 25 touchdowns. Jones has also added another 829 yards through the air with five more touchdowns.

To put it simply, this Green Bay Packers’ offense oftentimes looks a lot different when Jones is out there compared to when he isn’t.

But as we all know, in today’s NFL paying a running back top-dollar isn’t a requirement when it comes to winning. In fact, many advise against doing so. On top of that, at 5’9″ – 208 pounds, Jones is a bit smaller and has battled injuries during his career.

For Jones, running backs already have such a small window to earn as much as they can, so with this likely being the biggest contract he will receive in his career, he needs to take advantage of it. And he’s certainly earned the right to do so.

In a perfect world, I think we’d all love to have Jones back, but even with these recent reports surfacing, I’ll still be quite surprised if it happens. The two parties still seem relatively far apart when it comes to the guaranteed money as well as the overall contract.

Then when you take that and couple it with AJ Dillon already being in the fold, limited spending power, and bigger needs to address than the running back position, at this point, a deal still seems unlikely. But as we all know, Brian Gutekunst has certainly surprised us before.