Aaron Rodgers’ historic NFL contract may set up Russell Wilson to become highest paid in history

Aaron Rodgers just became the highest paid player in NFL history. His new contract extension is good for $134-million over 4 years (and could balloon to 180-million with incentives).

So, why is a site dedicated to NC State, reporting on the Rodgers deal? Well, because NC State is #QBU and this contract just set the market-bar astronomically high. This is a new precedent for the QBs, let alone the NFL.

As for the four former NC State QBs in the league, the next one up for a new contract is Russell Wilson. Just yesterday, CBS talked to how Rodger’s deal will affect Wilson’s negotiating stance.

Wilson will have significantly more leverage next offseason during his contract year than in 2015, when he was entering the final year of his rookie deal. At the time, Wilson had made just under $2.2 million from his playing contract. This dynamic was going to make it extremely difficult for Wilson to reject an offer with a fairly player-friendly structure putting him near the top of the NFL pay scale. The Seahawks made him the league’s second-highest paid player at $21.9 million per year, although he hadn’t demonstrated that he could carry the offense for extended periods of time, which isn’t an issue anymore.

Wilson will have made just over an additional $72 million on the field since that time when this season ends. This financial security will allow Wilson to play hardball in any negotiations for an extension.

There is a chance that the Seahawks to hit Wilson with the franchise tag, but because of Rodgers deal, the salary base for an exclusive franchise tag isn’t cheap. Wilson may be ok with accepting that.

Wilson embracing the franchise tag, like Cousins did, could be appealing because of the high salaries. He would stand to make almost $68 million over the two years before becoming an unrestricted free agent in 2022, when he is 33, a year younger than Rodgers is now. Since good, healthy quarterbacks who should still have several highly-productive years still ahead of them almost never hit the open market, Wilson could be a position for a mind-boggling contract by going this route (CBS).

The other option for the Seahawks would be to offer a long-term contract extension soon. They may not want to get into the year-by-year contract situation where it could end up way more expensive for them to keep Wilson around in the long run.

This gives Wilson massive leverage. If he declines the long-term deal (that Seattle may offer at market rate) and forces the Seahawks to go year by year, he’d be betting on himself staying healthy. At the same time, he’d be putting tons of pressure on the Seahawks to give him a long-term deal that he can’t refuse.

Sure, Seattle may end up having to give Wilson a contract larger than Aaron Rodgers, but even then, it would save them money in the long-term if they are dead-set on keeping him around.

It’s a bit complicated, and there will be a lot of bluffing going on, but this Rodgers deal seems to set Russell Wilson up to become a very, very rich man.