Despite making their way under the salary cap by last Wednesday’s deadline, there is still work to be done by the Green Bay Packers on that front.
According to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, as of last Wednesday, the Green Bay Packers were less than $1 million below the salary cap by his calculations with additional costs — the draft class, practice squad, etc. — still unaccounted for. Not to mention that they did just re-sign Kevin King.
The big moves still on the table are a restructure for Aaron Rodgers, which reportedly is in the works, as well as an extension for Davante Adams. But the Packers made two other reported moves recently, reworking the deals of Adrian Amos and Mason Crosby.
If you recall, the Packers already converted Amos’ $1.5 million roster bonus to a signing bonus to free up $750,000 in cap space this season. Now, according to Bill Huber of Sports Illustrated, they’ve lowered his base salary by $3.91 million to the league minimum $990,000, thus freeing up a total of $5.41 million in additional cap space when combined with last week’s roster bonus to signing bonus conversion.
To accomplish this, the Packers added on two voided years — Over the Cap says three — to Amos’ contract and can now prorate that converted base salary and roster bonus over four years—from 2021 to 2024.
The benefit of adding voided years is that the cap hit can be spread out over those additional years rather than having it recognized in 2021 and 2022, the final years of Amos’ deal.
Of course, there is always a downside, and that is that Amos will be on the books even after his contract ends in 2022–although, in 2023, the salary cap is expected to take a big jump with the new TV deal.
When it comes to Crosby, the Green Bay Packers made a similar move. They reduced his base salary by $425,000 and converted his $1.25 million roster bonus to a signing bonus, and then added three voided years to his deal to spread that cap hit out over five years—which reduces his cap hit from $4.5 million to $3.16 million in 2021.
The same pros and cons to this move that applied to Amos apply to Crosby as well.
With these moves in the books, Silverstein has the Green Bay Packers around $8 million under the salary cap, per the NFLPA, although that figure doesn’t take into account the re-signing of King or Aaron Jones.