There’s a time-honored sports tradition of a team’s best or highest-paid player lavishing his teammates with extravagant Christmas gifts.
After all, in team sports, individual success is only possible with collective effort, so it’s usually a chance for a team’s standout player to thank his teammates.
In the NFL, this Christmas tradition is typically reserved for the quarterback and his offensive lineman. Quarterbacks are often expected to be a team’s best — and easily the highest-paid — player, while his O-line does all the thankless dirty work to protect him.
Even when a quarterback on a rookie scale deal is making significantly less than his offensive lineman, they usually find some way to make it up:
Santa Purdy 🎅
Brock surprises his O-Line with some new wheels 🛻 pic.twitter.com/4iYIWs9k3t
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) December 20, 2024
Last year, the NFL’s “Mr. Irrelevant” (the backhanded nickname bestowed on the final pick of the NFL Draft) Brock Purdy went above and beyond for his offensive linemen, despite making relative peanuts (under $1 million) compared to some of his linemen (making as much as $27 million).
Purdy went viral for the above clip last year.
This year? Green Bay Packers star quarterback Jordan Love is similarly going viral for his Christmas gift-giving — albeit for very dissimilar reasons.
Oh Boy: Packers QB Jordan Love has gone viral for spending under $5K to buy all his teammates Nike Dunk sneakers for Christmas.
Love signed a $220 million contract and is getting paid $55 million per year.
Fans are shocked at how cheap he is…😳😬 pic.twitter.com/tBPL3fh5gB
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) December 25, 2025
Of note, as Spotrac notes, Love signed a sizable four-year, $220 million contract extension last summer with Green Bay.
That deal includes a $55 million average salary, $75 million just for signing the deal, and over $160 million guaranteed.
Despite that, he opted to get his entire team… Nike Dunks, which are somewhat affordable Nike shoes.
If you round up the number of players and coaches on the Packers to 100 (there are surely fewer than that) and go with the most expensive Nike Dunks on the market (roughly $200, but let’s round up to $300) that’s still $30,000 total — or about .05 percent of his annual salary.
As they are with most issues, social media was split on whether Love should be lauded or criticized for his gift-giving.
Some on social media pointed out that quarterbacks are usually expected to lavish their offensive lineman, and don’t need to get anything for their other teammates, oddly enough. So the fact that he wanted to get the entire team a gift was commendable.
In fact, a number of responses to the above viral post noted that all of his teammates are millionaires — or at least close enough — and can easily get their own fancy gifts.
Others, however, couldn’t quite get over the fact that he chose such an unimpressive gift for a man with such an impressive salary — and noting he makes significant money outside of his NFL salary, as well.
No wonder why his OL doesn’t protect him 🤦🏻♂️
— The Skoo (@The_Skoo) December 25, 2025
This might explain why none of his O-Line stood up for him after he got concussed 👀
— LOverrated (@JordanLoverated) December 25, 2025
He also has an endorsement deal with Nike. They likely paid him to give these shoes away
— Steve Shields (@SteveSh66200549) December 25, 2025
The brouhaha over his Christmas gift-giving is an insult to literal injury for Love, however, as he’s currently expected to miss his team’s penultimate regular season game with a concussion.
The Packers have locked up a playoff berth, though the NFC North division crown is still technically up for grabs.
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