Matt Ryan received a five-year $100 million guaranteed from the Atlanta Falcons, and now everyone turns to the Packers and Aaron Rodgers.

Ryan's deal, which is officially a five-year deal worth $150 million with $100 million guaranteed, will net him about $30 million in guaranteed money per season. He is currently the NFL's highest paid player surpassing Kirk Cousins who signed a three-year $84 million deal with the Vikings.

His stay as the highest paid player in the league though will be coming to and end soon. It appears that way anyways.

Aaron Rodgers became the biggest winner out of the Ryan deal on Thursday (May 3). It was essentially the last domino to fall, and now Rodgers has the negotiation power for a guaranteed contract worth more than $30 million guaranteed per season. At this rate, he'll probably get a deal wroth $35 million per year.

We're pretty sure Rodgers cracked a huge smile and did a few jumping jacks in excitement after seeing the details.

Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst is confident that a new deal with Rodgers will get done shortly. It appears that the outline and the absolute minimum of the deal will need to be. Surely, barring some complete breakdown, this will be happening sometime soon.

This does bring up a interesting twist of when the contracts become too much under the current hard salary cap system in the NFL. Quarterbacks eating up a majority of the salary cap can limit other talent at other positions. The debate was there with Kirk Cousins and his deal, Matt Ryan and his new contract, and it will be a discussion with the Packers after this one gets done.

Green Bay has been phenomenal under Rodgers as he helped lead the Packers to the playoffs in nine of 12 total seasons as their starting quarterback. Add in a Super Bowl ring in 2010 and everyone would say his resume and skill is worth every penny.

There was also last season though. Rodgers was injured in week 6 against the Minnesota Vikings and the team went on to miss the postseason for the first time since 2008. The Packers were 4-1 prior to Rodgers' injury and finished 3-8 over their final 11 games without their star. Without him, the issues with the entire roster on both offense and defense was exposed.

This brings Green Bay to an interesting time. They're not going to let Rodgers go elsewhere, strip everything down, and rebuild for the future. Now it's a game of finding the right timeframe of contract and price that will allow the Packers to keep some of their top players in Green Bay, while continuing to build their team in general. That might become a bit tricky to do so with a lot of money tied up in one player.

He's worth the money and deserves to be paid.

Question will be if he'll have enough around to make the money fully worth it.


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