Packers: Cutting Dean Lowry wasn’t an Option, Instead Restructure his Deal

With several hefty contracts on the books and a shrunken salary cap in 2021 due to the ramifications of no fans in the stands because of COVID-19, the Green Bay Packers have spent much of the offseason trying to get under that $182.5 million cap figure.

Through a few pay cuts and several contract restructures, they were able to do so, and according to Over the Cap, they were about $2.6 million under the cap. However, as GM Brian Gutekunst told us before the draft, there was still work to be done.

"“We’re going to have to do probably a few things with different contracts as we head towards the season and into the season to make sure our salary cap situation not only this year but into 2022 is square,” said Gutekunst via Packers Wire. “We’re not done yet. We’ve done a lot to get here, and we’ve been doing things as we go, and we’ll continue to do that as we go.”"

Although they are currently under the salary cap, that $2.6 million figure doesn’t account for the 52nd or 53rd players on the roster. It also doesn’t factor in any in-season spending or signing players to the practice squad. These are the big reasons why Green Bay is continuing to work on player contracts—$2.6 million in cap space just simply isn’t enough.

Ultimately this led to the Green Bay Packers restructuring the contract of IDL Dean Lowry, as reported by Field Yates of ESPN.

Lowry’s cap hit prior to this move was $6.3 million, but by converting $3.11 million of his $4.1 million base salary to a signing bonus, the Packers were able to lower his 2021 cap hit by $2.488 million by spreading that new $3.11 million signing bonus over the life of the deal.

The only problem with that is Lowry’s contract is up after the 2022 season, meaning Green Bay only had one additional year to push any cap space towards. So as a workaround, the Packers added three voided years to Lowry’s contract, according to Ken Ingalls.

What this does is it allows Green Bay to spread The cap hit from that signing bonus out over five years instead of just two. Now the downside is that even if Lowry is gone when his contract is up in 2022, he will still be on the books for three additional seasons. This is a strategy that the Packers have already used a few times this offseason.

When it comes to Lowry’s play on the field, he has underwhelmed a bit the last two seasons. His production has dipped since he received that contract extension after the 2018 season, and it’s been on par with his 2017 numbers when he played about 200 fewer snaps that year. This, coupled with the salary cap crunch, had many expecting Lowry to be a cap casualty—especially considering that the Green Bay Packers could have saved $3.3 million by doing so.

However, that was likely never a realistic option. The Packers IDL room is just way too thin, and Green Bay doesn’t have the luxury to move on from Lowry. Tyler Lancaster is primarily a run defender and limited player at that, and while I’m quite excited about TJ Slaton, he is still a Day 3 pick—expectations shouldn’t be that he is going to come in and assume a large role immediately. After those two are three practice squad players from 2020 in Willington Previlon, Delontae Scott, and Anthony Rush, none of which saw any sort of extensive playing time.

Now, I will say the hope is that we see Kingsley Keke take another step forward in Year 3, and Slaton does become a reliable member of the defensive line rotation. As a result, this could mean fewer snaps for Lowry, but I believe that would put him in a position to be more impactful overall–keeping him fresher and putting him in better positions to succeed.

It’s been clear all offseason that the Green Bay Packers’ plan was to run it back in 2021 in hopes of finally making it over the NFC Championship hump. In order to do so, they’ve pushed a lot of their cap issues from 2021 into 2022 and that trend continues with the restructuring of Lowry’s contract.