Green Bay Packers: Clark Gets Paid, Bakhtiari Should Be Next

The Green Bay Packers have just signed Kenny Clark to a four-year extension, and David Bakhtiari should be up next.

One of the big questions surrounding this Green Bay Packers team is a question that doesn’t really pertain to the 2020 season. Most of us are wondering how they are going to handle the 2021 offseason with five high-profile free agents.

Of course, this group includes – or did include – Kenny Clark, David Bakhtiari, Kevin King, Aaron Jones, and Corey Linsley. I assume that most of us expected Clark and Bakhtiari to be back, but the big question was, when? When it comes to the other three players, your guess is as good as mine.

Then, just before the Green Bay Packers took the field for their first real training camp practice of 2020, the news broke that we had all been waiting for. Clark had received his contract extension.

As Adam Schefter notes, Clark gets an additional four years on top of his current deal, which will pay him $70 million with a $25 million signing bonus. And I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that this deal is more than well deserved.

Whether against the run or the pass, Clark has developed into one of the best interior defensive linemen in the game. According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), in 2019, he totaled six sacks with 69 total pressures, he was sixth among all defensive linemen in pass-rush productivity, and second in run-stops.

So with the Clark deal now complete, our attention turns to Bakhtiari, who should be up next when it comes to getting a new contract.

The four-time All-Pro is considered one of, if not the best tackle in the game, especially when it comes to pass protection. Over the last four seasons, which has spanned 2,850 pass-blocking attempts, Bakhtiari has given up just 11 sacks. Looking at last year specifically, by ESPN’s pass-block win rate metric, which measures how often a lineman can hold his block for 2.5 seconds or longer, Bakhtiari ranked first among all tackles.

At the start of next season, Bakhtiari will still be just 29-years-old and in line for another big payday. Back in January, ESPN’s Rob Demovsky spoke with an NFL agent, and they predicted that Bakhtiari would land a deal with an average annual value of $17 million.

Although the Green Bay Packers are tight up against the cap currently, and they will be once again in 2021, not to mention that there’s the possibility that the salary cap drops next offseason, GM Brian Gutekunst told reporters earlier this week, that when it comes to their upcoming free agents, their priorities haven’t changed:

"“Yes it’s ( the unknowns around the salary cap) made it more difficult, but the priorities that we had back then are still the priorities that we have right now. So yes, looking out in 2021 and possibly 2022 with the ramifications of what’s going on right now is something that does make it more difficult, at the same time, our job is to figure that out and put the best team out there to win. So our priorities haven’t changed but it has made it more difficult.”"

While no names were ever mentioned, I think we can all agree that Gutey was referring to Clark and Bakhtiari.

As was the case with Clark, we didn’t know when his extension was going to take place, but we all expected it to happen. The same can be said for Bakhtiari. Regardless of the cap situation, when you have one of the best players in the NFL at a key position, you find a way to re-sign them.

So when it comes to David Bakhtiari, it’s just a matter of when, not if.