3 pros and cons to Seahawks possibly adding Aaron Rodgers

Con 1: Aaron Rodgers would be too expensive for the Seahawks

Aaron Rodgers is due to make a ton of money through 2026. The Packers made the decision to re-do Rodgers’ contract before last season and extend him for not just one or two years but reworked his deal for five years. And the deal is all kinds of messy currently. Rodgers has a cap hit of $31,623,568 for 2023 which is not at all awful for a quarterback of his ilk. But his dead cap is a ridiculous $99,778,568 so the Packers can’t release him outright. They would have to trade him.

The Seahawks are one of the teams that has a decent amount of cap space, though, for next season. Seattle, per Spotrac, currently has the 6th-most cap room for 2023 at $31,343,071. Straight up, trading for Aaron Rodgers and eating all of his salary next season would wipe away all of Seattle’s cap room. Seattle could, and probably will, unload the contracts of Gabe Jackson and Shelby Harris, and combined that would be about $15 million more in money to spend.

There is a way out for the Packers, or any team that trades for him, after 2023 if he is released his dead cap goes to $24,480,000. That is still a lot but not out of the question for a team to eat. If the team that adds Rodgers keeps him, though, his cap hit goes from $40,701,667 in 2024 to $59 million in 2025 and $53 million in 2026. That is…well, a lot.

For the Seahawks to try to trade for Rodgers, the plan would need to be to keep him as QB1 for several seasons. Otherwise, why take the risk? Maybe if the Packers were willing to take on some of Rodgers’ salary still it would help pull off the trade. But adding Rodgers means Seattle would have to be near-perfect with draft picks because his contract would make it nearly impossible to sign any high-end talent in free agency.