18 Salary Cap Moves & Projected Savings for Green Bay Packers
By Paul Bretl
A contract restructure works somewhat similarly to that of an extension, with the team converting a player’s base salary and/or roster bonus into a signing bonus and spreading that cap hit out over the remaining years on the deal. The big difference is that no additional years are being added to the contract with a restructure–the cap charges are just pushed into whatever years remain on the current contract.
Green Bay Packers Restructure David Bakhtiari’s Contract
Projected Cap Savings: $8.18 million
The 2022 season will be the second year of David Bakhtiari’s four-year extension that he signed in 2020. With a base salary of $3.2 million, the Packers do not have a ton of wiggle room when it comes to creating cap savings, but his roster bonus of $9.5 million does give them added flexibility.
Given that Over the Cap is projecting $8.18 million in cap savings, they are expecting the Packers to convert a large portion of Bakhtiari’s roster bonus. This is going to be the second season that Bakhtiari has his contract restructured, which is going to lead to some massive cap hits in 2023 and 2024.
Green Bay Packers Restructure Kenny Clark’s Contract
Projected Cap Savings: $9.54 million
Bakhtiari and Kenny Clark are in similar situations in that both are on Year 2 of their four-year extensions, and both are going to have rather large cap hits in 2023 and 2024, given that Green Bay will have restructured both deals in two consecutive seasons.
For Clark, specifically, he has an $8.25 million base salary as well as a $6.4 million roster bonus for the Green Bay Packers to work with. Again, these figures from Over the Cap are only projections because we do not know how much of either of these contracts will actually be restructured–but I’d say it’s close to a given that both deals will be reworked.
Green Bay Packers Restructure Aaron Jones’ Contract
Projected Cap Savings: $2.87 million
Last offseason, Aaron Jones signed a four-year deal to remain in Green Bay worth $48 million. In 2022, he has a base salary of only $1.1 million — that figure jumps to $8.1 million and $11.1 million in 2023 and 2024 — and a roster bonus of $3.75 million. In this projection, Over the Cap is anticipating that Green Bay converts a majority of Jones’ roster bonus to a signing bonus and pushes those cap charges to his final two contract years.