John Brockington, 74, Rushing Star for Green Bay, Is Dead
When he rushed for 1,144 yards in 1973, he became the first N.F.L. running back to gain more than 1,000 yards in each of his first three seasons.
John Brockington, a former All-Pro fullback who ranks fourth on the Green Bay Packers’ career rushing list, died on Friday in San Diego. He was 74.
The Packers announced the death but did not cite a cause.
Brockington played for the Packers from 1971 to 1977, a stretch during which he rushed for 5,024 yards. The only Green Bay players to gain more yards rushing are Ahman Green (8,322 from 2000 to 2009), Jim Taylor (8,207 from 1958 to 1966) and Aaron Jones (5,284 from 2017 to the present).
Brockington was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 7, 1948, and attended the Ohio State University. The Packers selected him with the ninth overall pick in the 1971 draft. In his final season at Ohio State, he rushed for 1,142 yards and 17 touchdowns.
In his first season with the Packers, Brockington rushed for 1,105 yards, which at the time was a National Football League rookie record. He earned All-Pro honors and was named N.F.L. offensive rookie of the year.
He followed that by rushing for 1,027 yards in 1972 while helping the Packers win the N.F.C. Central Division title. When he rushed for 1,144 yards in 1973, he became the first N.F.L. running back to run for more than 1,000 yards in each of his first three seasons.
Brockington was selected to the Pro Bowl for three straight years, from 1971 to 1973.
He finished his career with 5,185 yards rushing, 30 touchdown runs and four touchdown catches. In his final season, 1977, he played one game with the Packers and 10 with the Kansas City Chiefs.
He was inducted into the Packers’ Hall of Fame in 1984.
In a statement, Mark Murphy, the Packers’ president and chief executive, called Brockington “one of the great runners of his era.”
Brockington’s survivors include his wife, Diane.
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Aaron Rodgers Trade Costs Packers $40.3M in Dead Cap
The Packers saved themselves around $10 million in the salary cap department by trading Aaron Rodgers. But their approximately $40 million dead cap penalty for his early departure will sting their 2023 books, according to Spotrac.
If you need a refresher, the dead cap is the result of a player’s contract terminating before it’s fully completed. The Bears endured similar cap casualties last year by trading Roquan Smith and Robert Quinn.
The exact equation is totaling the amount of money a player has been paid up to the point of departure, adding the amount of guaranteed money on his contract, subtracting the total cap hit the team has taken thus far into the contract, and equating that number. That number represents the dead cap, the figure a team must allocate from its salary cap to satisfy the rest of the contract.
“Thanks to $7.6M of bonus proration from his 2018 contract, and another $32.6M from his 2022 roster bonus (treated as a signing bonus), Green Bay is left with a sizable $40,313,568 cap hit for the 2023 season,” Spotrac wrote on the website.
“Since the trade will be processed before June 1st, that entire amount will be taken on this season, with no further dead cap to be dealt with for the Packers. The $40.3M figure is actually $8.7M more than the original cap hit Aaron Rodgers held for the 2023 season. This move drops Green Bay’s Top 51 cap space down to an estimated $12.6M (still plenty to account for their now-inflated draft class).”
All in all, the Packers incurred a lot of dead cap but saved themselves some money by not going through with Rodgers’ gargantuan contract.
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