Pitting Justin Jefferson's $35,000,000 annual salary against Packers' WR room: How much will Green Bay's playmakers earn this year?
Justin Jefferson inked a mammoth four-year $140 million with the Vikings and his $35 million average annual salary makes him the highest-paid non-quarterback player in the league. To put that into perspective, we thought we would look into how much his peers earn and we selected Green Bay Packers for this experiment.
The Packers are in the same division (NFC North) as the Vikings and have a young cast of receivers that took them to the playoffs as Minnesota missed out. We expect the three top receivers on the depth chart to be Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs and Jayden Reed. The first two were taken in the 2022 NFL Draft and the latter in 2023, so they are still in their rookie phases.
Christian Watson is the highest-paid amongst them, having been selected in the second round, with a four-year, $9.2 million contract. Romeo Doubs has a contract of $4.3 million over the same period.
Jayden Reed's four-year contract is worth $7.18 million. The total for all of them comes to just above $20 million. That's about $120 million less than what Justin Jefferson alone will get in that period.
In terms of approximate average annual value, Christian Watson will draw around $2.3 million this year, followed by Jayden Reed's $1.8 million and Romeo Doubs' $1.1. million.
The total of that comes to $5.2 million for all three Packers wide receivers combined and that's still nearly $30 million less than what their Vikings counterpart will earn alone.
Vikings structuring team differently to the Packers by giving Justin Jefferson his new deal
The reason for this discrepancy is not hard to fathom. The Vikings have a rookie quarterback in J.J. McCarthy.
By not paying a premium at that position, as any team with a veteran quarterback has to do, they can pay other players top money. That's why they have given Justin Jefferson the deal he got.
In a way, it's the current San Francisco 49ers model where Brock Purdy is costing them practically nothing and therefore, they can afford to pay other players around him.
The Packers, meanwhile, have a young team that's growing together with Jordan Love being the first in line to receive an extension. None of his support cast might be individually as gifted as Justin Jefferson but they all create a team that can overcome better opponents.
As each of them gets nearer to their own new contracts, it will become harder for the Packers to retain everyone.