The Vikings Did What They Do Best And Delivered A Gut Punch To The Packers By Signing Aaron Jones

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Yesterday, amidst the Packers' whirlwind free agency day, the franchise announced that beloved running back Aaron Jones would be getting released. Today we found out that Jones was taking the patented-disgruntled Packers rout and signing with the Vikings. 

In a span of 24 hours I went from thinking the Packers were going to deploy a two headed monster in Jacobs and Jones to now Jones being on Minnesota. Fuck me. It's always the Vikings. Tremendous dickheads. They house our angry like their lives depend on it. Brett Favre, Greg Jennings, Darren Sharper, Za'Darius Smith, Ryan Longwell, and now Jones. Outside of Favre because of obvious reasons, Jones hurts the most. Homegrown guy, kind of an afterthought as a 5th round pick, but quickly rose the ranks within the team to become a difference maker. The team's performance was noticeably better anytime Jones was on the field and his personality was infectious off of it. Age and availability became big factors though in going in a different direction with Josh Jacobs. It's a business and if you hang onto older players just because the fans like them, well you're gonna get burned. Replacing Jones with Jacobs is the right move, but don't get me wrong it stings. 

Now there's the disgruntled part. Jones only signed a one year, $7M deal with Minnesota. So what happened between the Packers talks with Jones to cause this rift? A 50% pay cut was the rumored ask from Green Bay to bring him back. Jones took to Twitter earlier but wouldn't really budge on what the specific issues were.

So what was it? Did Jones and his agent completely misread the open market, thinking they'd get more? How far off were they actually over the weekend for shit to fall apart? Demovsky saying that the Jacobs move was a pivot after talks broke down with Jones is interesting. It's all speculation until we know what Green Bay offered, but all of this is weird. 

Update: After incentives the new deals were only a million dollars apart. Granted that's with incentives and the base was I guess enough for Jones to go elsewhere. Or….they misjudged the market afterwards. 

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I loved this fucking guy on the Packers so this is gonna hurt like a bitch. This story from Athletic beat reporter Matt Schneidman tells you what you need to know about the man. 

Full tweet: 

Quick Aaron Jones story: A couple summers ago, I was half asleep walking through the Green Bay airport around 5 a.m. flying to one of my best friend’s weddings. Place was uncharacteristically packed. Jones was there dropping off his mom and son. He saw me and at the ass crack of dawn, stopped unprompted to chat for a little and seemed genuinely interested in how I was doing, where I was going, etc. Very small, but every good word you hear about him on the outside is how he treated those he encountered at work every day behind closed doors, by all accounts.

Now I gotta see him in purple? Puke. Aaron Jones is a villain now? This is just wrong. Naturally the Vikings count these types of moves as their Super Bowl wins, but it still admittedly hurts to realize this is happening. 

P.S. I don't play fantasy anymore but a motivated Aaron Jones on a one year deal with dump off merchant Sam Darnold at the helm? I'd take him early.