Green Bay Packers: 3 Salary Cap Saving Moves to Make in 2021
By Paul Bretl
Contract Restructures
When it comes to contract restructures, you might hear the phrase “kicking the can down the road” associated with it. And in part, that’s what happens. What a restructure does is it takes a portion of that player’s salary for that season and converts it to a signing bonus, also known as cash. Teams can then spread the cap hit from the converted signing bonus out over the remainder of the contract. Thus lowering the cap hit in that current season.
Pretty smart strategy, right? And it is! But at some point, those converted amounts have to count against the salary cap. The dead money that I referenced on the previous slide then increases in future years, which can make it more difficult for the team to move on from a player at that time.
As far as the Green Bay Packers go, in 2021, there are three players who would be good contract restructure candidates; Aaron Rodgers, David Bakhtiari, and Za’Darius Smith. Pete Dougherty over at Packers News calculated what the Packers could save by restructuring these three deals, and it turns out to be quite a bit. By Pete’s calculations, Green Bay could save $13.7 million by reworking Rodgers’ deal, $7.8 million for Bakhtiari’s, and $7.5 million for Smith’s, which totals $29 million in additional cap space.