Packers Rumors: Interest in Signing Preston Smith to Extension
By Paul Bretl
A year ago at this time, many of us thought that Preston Smith was going to be a cut candidate after a down season and the Green Bay Packers needing to create cap space.
Now here we sit, and Smith could be in line for an extension. According to Tony Pauline of Pro Football Network, the Packers and Smith’s representatives will discuss a potential extension at the combine.
"“Pauline is told that the Packers want to keep Smith and will attempt to sign him to an extension with the hopes of getting this year’s number down. Both sides are expected to talk about a contract extension during the NFL Combine.”"
Smith is coming off a highly productive 2021 season in which he finished tied for 10th among all edge rushers in total pressures and was 13th among edge rushers in PFF’s pass-rush productivity metric—not to mention that he was much improved against the run as well.
An extension for Smith makes a lot of sense for a few reasons. The obvious is that it will keep a highly productive player at a premier position in Green Bay beyond the 2022 season—the final year of his current contract.
On top of that, as good as Smith and Rashan Gary were last season as a pass rushing duo, the overall depth of the unit was a concern for much of the season as there was a considerable drop off in production when those two weren’t on the field.
With it already looking like Za’Darius Smith will be playing elsewhere in 2022, the Packers aren’t exactly in a position to move on from Preston for the $12.4 million in cap savings they would earn by doing so—while Gary was very impressive, he simply cannot do it all on his own.
With that said, even with the Packers cap situation, cutting Smith should never have ever been on their radar to begin with—Smith has been far too productive at one of the game’s most important positions.
A restructure would be another way to create cap space, but not an ideal one. With 2022 being the last year of Smith’s contract, voided years would have to be utilized and it would also set Smith up for free agency in 2023, rather than keeping him in Green Bay.
An extension, however, will still provide the Green Bay Packers with some much-needed cap space.
Although there is new money being added to the potential extension, there are also additional years added on as well, meaning more years to spread the cap charges over. With a base salary in 2022 of $8.3 million, there are plenty of dollars that can be converted to a signing bonus, which can then be spread over the life of the new deal—thus lowering Smith’s current cap hit.
While this is only a projection, Over the Cap estimates that an extension for Smith will create $8.7 million in cap space this season. If you ask me, this is an easy decision to make for all the reasons already discussed.
"“Preston’s got incredible, God-given ability,” said Joe Barry via SI. “The thing I’m probably most proud of is how hard he’s played this year. He’s really played with really maximum effort all year long. When you have a guy that has an incredible skill-set, you have a guy that is as talented as he is, and then he goes out and plays his tail off play in and play out, the end result is usually really good.”"