Green Bay Packers: With Preston Smith’s Help, Russ Ball Performs Cap Wizardry

Perhaps the biggest question circulating around the Green Bay Packers this offseason — other than how they were going to get under the shrunken salary cap — was what were they going to do with Preston Smith.

Smith had a fantastic first season in Titletown, posting 12 sacks — the eighth-most in football that year — along with 62 total pressures–the 15th most among all edge rushers. Yet, in 2020, he was unable to sustain that pace. In fact, his production and overall play plummeted. Smith ended the year with only four sacks and just 29 pressures.

This is what made his situation so difficult. He was only a year removed from being one of the more productive pass-rushers in the game, but taking a $16 million cap hit for a player coming off a down year in an offseason where the salary cap is dropping instead of increasing was never really an option either.

So what other options did the Green Bay Packers have with Preston Smith?

Alber Breer of MMQB reported that Smith’s name had surfaced in NFL circles when it came to trade talks. But that was likely never really an option given his cap hits of $16 million and $16.5 million these next two seasons and his lack of production in 2020.

Green Bay could have kicked the can down the road — albeit not that far — with a contract restructure. However, that was likely never a realistic option either. With 2022 being the final year of his current deal, any money saved in 2021 has to be moved there, and he already had a cap hit as mentioned above of $16.5 million.

A cut seemed to be the most likely option as it would have saved the Green Bay Packers $8 million in cap space, but that would have also created a bigger need at the edge rusher position that would need to be addressed at some point this offseason. While Za’Darius Smith and Rashan Gary are a great one-two punch on their own, in today’s NFL, you need three edge rushers and going into the season relying on seventh-rounder Jon Garvin or UDFA Tip Galeai comes with its obvious risks.

There didn’t really seem to be an ideal scenario for Green Bay–at least that’s what us mere mortals thought. Leave it to Russ Ball, the Green Bay Packers Executive Vice President and Director of Football Operations, who handles the finances when it comes to player contracts.

Ball, with the help of Smith, of course, was able to rework Preston’s deal, allowing Green Bay to still save a large chunk of cap space while also keeping him in a Packers’ uniform.

The nuts and bolts of what took place is that Smith took a pay cut, reducing his base salary from $12 million to just $8 million. However, this new deal is very incentive-heavy, allowing Smith to earn back up to $4.4 million depending on how many of the sack incentives he hits. And if maxed out, this is actually more than what he would have made on his original deal.

Ball and the Packers also shifted $3.25 million in cap hit from 2021 to 2022, increasing Smith’s cap hit next year to $19.75 million–a hefty amount, no doubt. But if the Packers do choose to move on from him next offseason, they can still save $12.5 million in cap space at that time.

So when it was all said and done, the Green Bay Packers saved $7.25 million in cap space, and they get to keep Preston Smith. If you recall what I said a few paragraphs ago, flat-out cutting Smith would have saved $8 million. Brilliant.

As is the case with anything, there is give and take. The Green Bay Packers could have saved $8 million in 2021 by cutting Smith, and he wouldn’t have been on the books at all in 2022. But then Green Bay would have lost a player who is only one year removed from a career year and it would have created a new need to address.

Instead, they chose to keep him, still saving $7.25 million this year, and while he now does come with a dead cap hit of that same $7.25 million in 2022 if the Packers decide to release him at that point — which in all honesty is probably what’s likely given his $19.75 million cap hit — they can still save $12.5 million overall.

As I said, there’s give and take. At some point, the cap hit comes due. However, in this instance, Ball was able to minimize that hit while still keeping one of the Green Bay Packers’ most important players in town.

This will now be the third year that The Smiths and Gary are manning the edge rusher position. However, we have yet to see all three firing on all cylinders at the same time. In 2019, The Smiths dominated while Gary was brought along slowly. And then, in 2020, Za’Darius had an All-Pro season, Gary took a big leap, but Preston struggled.

Hopefully, 2021 is the year where all three wreak some havoc because if that’s the case, well, then all I have to say is good luck.