Green Bay Packers: 5 Big Questions Heading into Free Agency
By Paul Bretl
The NFL’s legal tampering period begins this coming Monday, and two short days later, free agency opens. While both those dates are coming up rather quickly, for the Green Bay Packers — and I’m sure several of other teams — there are a number of questions that remain.
Before each game during the regular season, I would discuss my five big questions about the upcoming matchup. With all of the unknowns surrounding this unusual offseason, I thought I’d take a similar approach and tackle the five big questions facing the Packers over the next week.
How do the Green Bay Packers get under the salary cap?
This is likely the big question on the minds of many and has been the main topic of conversation all offseason. Currently, the Green Bay Packers find themselves about $11.5 million over the projected cap and have to be under by next week.
The good news, I suppose, is that they have a number of options when it comes to creating that cap space, but it doesn’t make the decision-making any easier.
A few notable cap-saving moves that Brian Gutekunst and Co. could make is extending Davante Adams and restructuring Aaron Rodgers’ deal. I would say these two are the most likely.
They have a few different paths that they could take with Preston Smith — we will get to that shortly — and Dean Lowry is another cut candidate—although I’d advise against that one given the lack of depth.
Two other under-the-radar moves include extensions for Za’Darius Smith and Adrian Amos. These aren’t the only moves that can be made; there are others, but how Green Bay is going to exactly go about this remains an unknown. And the clock is ticking.