More Salary Cap Moves to Come for Green Bay Packers
By Paul Bretl
Much of the offseason has been spent speculating how the Green Bay Packers were going to navigate their way under the salary cap by the March 16th deadline.
They entered the offseason almost $52 million over the projected salary cap, but have now almost worked their way out of the red, even with re-signing De’Vondre Campbell and placing the franchise tag on Davante Adams. According to Over the Cap, Campbell’s cap hit this season will be $4.24 million while Adams is $20.14 million—although agreeing to a long-term deal will help lower that.
The way that the Green Bay Packers have been able to combat this cap deficit is with a series of cap-saving moves, ranging from a pair of extensions, to a few restructures, and some veteran cuts as well.
So far, Green Bay has restructured the contracts of Aaron Jones, David Bakhtiari, and Kenny Clark, which combined, has freed up about $21.65 million in cap space. The extensions for Aaron Rodgers and Preston Smith would create an additional $26.4 million in available cap space for 2022. Lastly, releasing Za’Darius Smith and Billy Turner would save $18.6 million.
With that all said and done, Over the Cap projects that the Green Bay Packers are still $6.9 million over the cap—so there is still work to be done.
As mentioned above, the Packers have to be under the salary cap by 3:00 CST on Wednesday, the 16th, which is the start of free agency and the new league year. But getting under is only the first step; they’ll need to make sure they have cap space for additional expenses such as re-signing any of their own free agents, as well as cap space if they want to explore free agent options outside of the organization.
On top of that, as the offseason progresses, the Packers will need cap space for their draft class, the practice squad, any in-season spending that may take place, and the last two roster spots.
When it comes to freeing up this needed cap space, the Packers still have several moves at their disposal to do so. Below is a look at some potential options along with the projected cap savings from Over the Cap:
– Jaire Alexander extension: $9.8 million in projected savings
– Adrian Amos extension: $5.1 million in projected savings
– Adrian Amos restructure: $4.7 million in projected savings
– Dean Lowry restructure: $3.3 million in projected savings
– Randall Cobb restructure: $3.3 million in projected savings
– Cut Randall Cobb: $6.74 million in projected savings
As we often discuss, when it comes to creating cap space for the current year, there are tradeoffs that have to be made—specifically, in the Packers case, they are sacrificing financial flexibility down the road.
Through these extensions and restructures, just as they did in 2021, they are pushing a large amount of cap charges to future years. They’ve gained flexibility now, but at some point in the coming years, those charges have to hit the books, and when they do, it will limit their spending power—the big question is, how much?
However, those are questions for another day. It’s quite clear that the Green Bay Packers are all-in on the next two to three years with Rodgers and will operate aggressively in hopes of winning another Super Bowl.
While many were apprehensive about the Green Bay Packers’ salary cap situation this offseason, as we’ve seen, they have plenty of cap-saving moves available as long as they’re okay with the tradeoffs that come with them—which clearly Brian Gutekunst and Russ Ball are.