NFC Notes: Lions, Packers, Aaron Rodgers

Lions

• Tim Twentyman of DetroitLions.com writes that while QB Jared Goff has a chip on his shoulder after being sent over from the Los Angeles Rams, the true battle in training camp will be between QB Tim Boyle and QB David Blough for the backup job.

Packers

Packers’ president Mark Murphy mentioned the team expenses and how they were affected by the pandemic in his monthly column. The club reported $309.2 million of national revenues, while local revenue fell from $210 million to just $61 million.

While the NFL collectively lost around $4 billion in local revenue during the 2020 season, the ninth-ranked Packers saw a loss of $149 million and were down $38 million in income from operations. This was a harsh change from last season when the team made an operations profit of $70.3 million. 

One positive aspect was the team investment fund, which garnered a $98 million gain. In the end, the Packers made a profit of $60.7 million, which is higher than their profit the past two seasons.

“It was really crucial, and our priority going into it, we knew (if) we were able to get all the games broadcast on television, that would cover all of our player expenses,” Murphy said, via Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic. “So that was crucial. A lot of credit to the league office, particularly in terms of the protocols that were put in place. And, you know, kind of the core of that was the testing. We had a loss from operations, the first time we haven’t had a profit in over 20 years. And that’s a result of really an unprecedented rebound in the investment markets following the downturn at the very beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020.”

Murphy adds that the team was forced to manage their expenses more wisely and use a line of credit. However, Murphy has all the confidence in the world that the team will rebound post-pandemic.

“An awful lot of confidence in the future, because of the long-term collective bargaining agreement that we have in place with our players’ association and the new long-term broadcast agreements that the league has entered into recently,” Murphy said. “And we’re optimistic. We’re going to obviously follow closely what’s going on with the pandemic and the delta variant. And we’ll be guided by CDC objectives as well as our own local health officials.”

Aaron Rodgers

• Marc Ross of NFL.com thinks Aaron Rodgers is deserving of a raise in his next deal given he makes more than $11 million less than Patrick Mahomes.
• Ross also mentions that Packers WR Davante Adams deserves a payday as the No. 18 ranked receiver in annual salary at $14.8 million.