Your Guide to 2022 Green Bay Packers Salary Cap Situation
By Paul Bretl
Green Bay Packers largest salary cap hits in 2022
Before we dive into how the Green Bay Packers can begin clearing all that cap space, along with how restructures, extensions, and veteran cuts work, let’s take a look at which current contracts are taking up the largest portions of the salary cap heading into the 2022 season–the numbers are quite staggering.
As I mentioned on the previous page, the salary cap this year is jumping up to $208.2 million, and in the Green Bay Packers’ case, their top-11 highest salary cap hits total roughly $198.93 million, or just over 95 percent of the available cap space. While these players are taking up a majority of the salary cap, they account for only a small portion of the total expenses that take place over the course of a normal NFL season.
So obviously, when it comes to creating salary cap savings, whether that be via a contract extension, a contract restructure, or by either cutting or trading a player, these 11 contracts are where most of the cap savings are going to come from.
Aaron Rodgers: $46.79 million
Za’Darius Smith: $27.66 million
David Bakhtiari: $22.76 million
Kenny Clark: $20.9 million
Preston Smith: $19.75 million
Jaire Alexander: $13.29 million
Adrian Amos: $11.98 million
Randall Cobb: $9.64 million
Billy Turner: $9.24 million
Aaron Jones: $9 million
Dean Lowry: $7.92 million
All salary cap figures are courtesy of Over the Cap