http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/200 ... from-2005/
Aaron and Alex: Three Years Later
At the risk of overkill on the impressive debut of Aaron Rodgers, the timing of such performance in light of Alex Smith being placed on IR yesterday is striking. Again, when it comes to Aaron, I admit that I am a close friend, a fan, and a biased commentator. I do not know, nor have I ever met, Alex Smith and I genuinely feel bad for his injury. However, the fortunes of two franchises hang in the balance due to the selection of these two players over three years ago.
After what appeared to be significant due diligence on every angle of both players, the 49ers opted for Smith over Rodgers with the first pick in the 2005 NFL Draft. As discussed in this space before, the economics of that selection have become hugely disproportionate to the price of picks not far below that slot. For the right to have the top draft pick and select the highest premium position with that pick – a quarterback – San Francisco was left with the following contractual obligation:
Six years, 49.5M with almost half of that amount, 24M, guaranteed. Smith received a staggering 20% growth rate in guaranteed money from the Eli Manning deal (20M) the prior year!
Following the selection of Smith at the top, we all now know what happened to Aaron. Stuck in the green room with agent Mike Sullivan at his side, he sat and waited. And waited. And waited. (This difficult scenario of a player alone in the green room was avoided the next year as Brady Quinn was ushered into a separate area away from the cameras by Commissioner Goodell.) As the staff was cleaning up the room and folding the chairs after all the other invited players and their entourages had left, Aaron sat and waited for the call that finally came from my cell phone.
No other team truly needed a quarterback. Tampa was there with the fifth pick. Jon Gruden had promised Aaron that if he were there, he would be a Buc (Gruden apparently told the same to USC wide receiver Mike Williams). Neither one would be.
Maybe the Titans at #6? No, Pacman. The Chiefs at #15? No, Derrick Johnson. And on it went. Finally, with our pick at #24 and some of our defensive end favorites already selected – Marcus Spears and DeMarcus Ware of the Cowboys among them – we were going to opt for Aaron. I called Sullivan’s phone. Aaron answered, obviously excited by the Green Bay area code. I could not tell Aaron the news yet, but merely asked to speak with Mike. I had to tell Mike to wait because the phone could have rung with an offer we might not have been able to refuse. Now Aaron had to sit another agonizing 10 minutes after waiting 5 hours in an empty green room with the cameras recording every moment. Mercifully, we finally picked him, got him out of that green room, and allowed its cleaning staff to finish their work.
The deal I did for Aaron slotted in at #24 – 5 years, 7.7M with 4.13M guaranteed. That part took 10 minutes to negotiate; the rest of the weeks-long negotiation was about the escalators, and excruciating process of trying to determine when and if he would have a chance to earn the extra money faced with the unanswerable question as to Brett Favre’s retirement. Now, of course, Aaron has only this year to earn an escalator, the last of four that had that potential.
Thus, in the past few days, the first quarterback picked in the 2005 NFL Draft, the one with 24M guaranteed has been placed on season-ending injured reserve. The second quarterback picked in the 2005 NFL Draft, the one with almost 20M less guaranteed, started his first game and looked better than Smith has looked in his career.
At this time next year, there may be dramatic shifts on the financial side for these two players whose careers seem inextricably linked. With the 49ers having exercised the buyback in Smith’s contract, his 2009 salary is scheduled to be 9.625M! That number is now entirely irrelevant; there is no chance of Smith receiving that money.
As to Rodgers, he will be in the last year of that deal we signed in 2005 and, for different reasons than Smith, I doubt Aaron will ever see that salary. Assuming he stays healthy and continues to play even close to the way he did Monday, the Packers will go to him long before this time next season to lock him up with a market deal that may exceed the 18M guaranteed that Jaguars quarterback David Garrard received this spring. That money, combined with the guaranteed money in his present contract, will get him close to the level that Alex Smith received based on that fateful draft day in 2005.
