With Aaron Rodgers’ long-term contract extension, Jordan Love continues to move into the second tier with the Green Bay Packers for years to come. A move to another team makes sense, but again, the youngster is left with few options.

Munich – Jordan Love’s path with the Green Bay Packers seemed mapped out for two years. Actually.

As Aaron Rodgers’ successor, Love would eventually take over the starter role at the quarterback position, as Rodgers once did from NFL legend Brett Favre. It would complete and continue a cycle of continuity and success simultaneously that is unparalleled in the NFL.

But at present, there is little to suggest such a scenario. Rodgers remains the Green Bay Packers’ quarterback and has no plans to step away from his post in the next few years. For his second consecutive MVP season, officials rewarded him with a new four-year contract that is hefty in terms of salary.

This doesn’t just diminish Jordan Love’s chances of landing the starter’s job anytime soon. No, that door has now slammed shut – and slowly but surely the 23-year-old’s career is heading into dangerous waters.

Jordan Love: Two more years at most in Green Bay?

Even though examples like Rodgers or Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs show that quarterbacks who sat on the bench in their first rookie years do better later on, Love’s window of opportunity is getting smaller.

That’s because Rodgers’ retention means the youngster is likely to play few to no games as the Packers’ signal-caller under his rookie contract. In doing so, he may continue to be groomed behind the reigning MVP, but the Packers are starting to have to ask themselves what they are actually grooming him for.

Rodgers – if he fulfils his contract – will hold the reins until at least 2025, that’s for sure. But what happens to Love? It’s hard to imagine the Packers picking up his option for a fifth year after the 2023 season. They would then have to offer him a guaranteed sum of 19.7 million US dollars as early as this season, with the trend rising until 2023.

A mega-contract for Rodgers on the one hand and probably over twenty million US dollars on the other for a back-up? Not a common approach for a team that is fully in “all-in” mode.

Jordan Love: Hardly an argument in free agency

A logical option for Love would be to test the open market in Free Agency in two years, should Rodgers not have resigned by then. While typically other first-round quarterbacks sign their first big contract at that point in their careers, it remains to be seen how big the market would ultimately be for Love then.

The Packers, of course, continue to hope that they already have their playmaker for the post-Rodgers era in the youngster. Unlike Green Bay, the other teams in the NFL so far have only a small sample size of how big Love’s developmental potential really is.

“I’m excited about his path and where he’s going,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said even before Aaron Rodgers’ contract extension: “We still have a lot of hope that he’ll follow suit.” Gutekunst has faced criticism in the past for blowing a chance at one of the promising receiver talents in the 2020 draft by picking Love.

While Love did not appear in any games in his rookie season, he was allowed to show his skills for the first time in the past season. Against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 10, he led the Packers onto the field, but only because Rodgers was out due to a Corona infection.

With 190 yards and a touchdown as well as an interception he delivered a decent game, but also revealed that he is (still) far from being made as a full-time starter for the NFL.

Jordan Love: Trade as way out?

In the course of the long discussions about Rodgers staying, Love was also repeatedly traded as a possible trade candidate. While it would be logical for Love’s signs to point to parting after the news about Rodgers, two problems become apparent here at once.

Firstly, those responsible put a stop to this scenario early on: “I don’t think I’ll be taking many calls for him,” Gutekunst explained: “Of course he would have liked things to go a bit when he was playing. But I think he also made positive signs throughout the year,” Gutekunst said.

On the other hand, it’s questionable whether there’s much interest in the Packers back-up at all within the league. The Chiefs game opened the eyes of many other teams that Love is by no means an instant starter, but continues to fall into the “diamond in the rough” category.

With the young playmaker securely tied to the Packers for two more years, Gutekunst and Co. are likely to keep their feet still for as long as possible, after all, with Love they have a premium solution at the back-up position in their ranks.

Quo vadis, Jordan Love?

What is a luxury problem for the Packers, however, should be of little benefit to Love’s personal career. Even though Aaron Rodgers was also only in his fourth year when he took the reins from Favre, it seems hard to imagine a similar leap in Love’s development at the moment.

The Packers have relied fully on Aaron Rodgers over the next four years, and a generational change is off the table for now. And that puts Love in a real career pickle. Because he can certainly learn a thing or two behind Rodgers in Green Bay, but he can only gain real playing experience elsewhere.

Since a trade makes little sense from the Packers’ point of view, there is little movement in this direction. So the 23-year-old will have little choice but to sit out the next two years with the Packers.

If nothing has changed in his situation by then, a change of team in free agency in 2024 seems the most obvious scenario. But even then, it’s still up in the air whether he’ll ever be able to extricate himself from this career impasse.