This warms my heart! I LOVE that he is ALL ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION and the FANS and NOT looking for a giant payday!
http://www.yardbarker.com/nfl/artic...lay_another_eight_years_in_green_bay/12880876
YESSSSSSS!
I think you've misread his comments. "Not being in a hurry" does not necessarily translate to taking a discount.
Here's a related quote, that I find somewhat telling, from ESPN:
"I think everybody is going to see what Joe [Flacco] ends up signing for," Rodgers said Tuesday on his weekly radio show on 540 ESPN. "I'm sure they want to lock him up. He's a great player -- had an incredible run in the playoffs -- and I'm sure they want to keep him around. A guy like that, with the postseason success he's had, you want to keep a guy like that around for a while."
I would interpret these comments collectively to mean he's not in a hurry because it's rumored that Flaco's deal will be for top-of-the-heap money (though I remain skeptical of that). However, if such rumors come to pass ($20 mil average), it will raise the bar for Rodgers, providing he bides his time until the other guys get their deals done.
There's nothing wrong with trying to make as much as you can, within some reasonable bounds. It's a business.
In Flaco's case, if the rumors are true, you'd have to conclude he's using the SB and the arbitrary exclusive tag $ figure as a kind of extortion. That's a game I would hope the Ravens don't play.
But if a player's agent comes in saying player W (Brees) makes $X, and player Y (Flaco) makes $Z dollars, and my guy is younger than W, and better/more proven than Y, and thinks his guy should get more as a result, that is a fair argument.
Rodgers will end up with at least a tie for the #1 contract in the league, and likely alone at #1 after factoring in the size of the signing bonus and the guarantees. The more Flaco (and the other top QBs who will be extended) can extract, the more Rodgers can legitimately claim for himself, provided the other guys sign before he does.