Packers team president Mark Murphy wants to do a pair of quarterback deals, and sounded optimistic about getting them done sooner rather than later.
While addressing a group of Packers reporters at the league meetings, Murphy acknowledged that the Packers are working on a long-term deal for quarterback Aaron Rodgers, which would likely be done before the start of the season.
“It’s a priority,” Murphy said, via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “I think as an organization, I think we all want to see that get done.”
Murphy didn’t offer much in the way of specifics on timing, deferring to negotiator Russ Ball (who they don’t allow to talk to reporters).
A new deal for Rodgers will almost certainly make him the highest-paid player in the league, as his $9.75 million salary this year looks paltry by comparison to what Joe Flacco just received (six years, $120.6 million).
A deal with the guy Rodgers replaced won’t be nearly as expensive, at least in terms of money.
Murphy said he hoped they were getting closer to having Brett Favre return, so they could retire his number.
The frost between Favre and the team seemed to be thawing when he appeared together with Rodgers at the NFL Honors the week of the Super Bowl.
“I thought that was great,” Murphy said. “It was kind of a good first step. And our intent all along is we want to bring him back into the family and retire his number. He deserves it. . . .
“I don’t want to put a deadline on it, but it’s going to happen. It’s got to be sitting down, the organization, whether it’s myself or others, sitting down with him and working on the timing on it.”
When he says it like that, it almost makes the two tasks sound easy to pull off.