Green Bay Packers: 3 Significant Salary Cap Saving Moves Still Available

Green Bay Packers Cap Saving Move: Davante Adams Extension

The Za’Darius Smith extension makes a lot of sense, but I wouldn’t call it a given either. However, an extension for Davante Adams that just seems incredibly likely. Adams is entering the final year of his current deal and comes with a $16.78 million cap hit.

Like Smith, he has a hefty base salary of $12.25 million, and any of that can be converted to a signing bonus and prorated out over the years added on to the contract via an extension. Again, the benefit of this is that it lowers Adams’ cap hit in 2021, and instead of Green Bay recognizing the full cap hit in one year, they can spread it out over the life of the deal.

The 28-year-old Adams has emerged as what many would consider the top wide receiver in the game, and he’s coming off an incredibly dominant season. Although he only played in 14 games, Adams still tallied 115 receptions, 1,374  receiving yards, and a league-best 18 touchdowns. He also led the NFL in yards per game with 98.1 and caught over 77 percent of his targets.

Any time you discuss an extension with a player in their late-20s, teams always have to be mindful of injuries and their play declining. While Adams has missed at least one game in each of the last four seasons, I don’t see durability being a huge concern either–and honestly, 14 games of Adams is better than 16 games of just about anyone else.

When it comes to his style of play, he doesn’t solely rely on his athleticism, which can really hurt some receivers’ production when that begins to fade. Adams is a tactician at the line of scrimmage, with a release game that is unmatched, and that should keep him effective into the later years of his extension.

Again, when it comes to these Over the Cap projections, they are just that, projections, and can change depending on how much base salary is converted to a signing bonus. But they have an Adams’ extension creating $9.34 million in cap space.