Green Bay Packers to Remain Cap Conscious but able to Add to Roster

By March 16th, the Green Bay Packers, along with the rest of the NFL, had to be under the salary cap for the start of the new league year. Of course, the Packers made the deadline, but it wasn’t with much room to spare. In fact, they had to delay the official signing of De’Vondre Campbell to do so.

This was an offseason where we didn’t know how much spending power the Packers would have in free agency–although it was assumed that it wouldn’t be much. However, by trading Davante Adams, Green Bay gained some salary-cap flexibility–about $20.1 million worth of flexibility to be exact.

Since then, the Packers have been putting that cap space to work, re-signing Rasul Douglas and Robert Tonyan, while also adding Jarran Reed. To read more about each individual contract, you can click here, but in short, Green Bay still has about $15.13 mill in available cap space, according to Over the Cap (OTC).

Now, that sounds great, and all, but the Green Bay Packers still have to remain salary cap conscious moving forward. What that $15.13 million figure does not include is the cost of the incoming draft class, which Over the Cap projects will cost Green Bay $13.625 million in cap space–absorbing a majority of what is currently left.

On top of that, the Packers will need to have cap space to sign their practice squad when that time comes as well as reserves for any in-season spending so they can add players like they have in the past, such as Rasul Douglas, Jared Veldheer, and Tyler Ervin, for example. Ken Ingalls estimates that the practice squad will cost the Packers another $3.5 million in cap space.

So very quickly, that $15.13 million is gone, and that’s without making any other free-agent additions. But with that said, the Green Bay Packers do still have other cap-saving moves available.

At some point, they are going to sign Jaire Alexander to an extension, which will free up cap space by reducing his $13.2 million cap hit in 2022. OTC projects that an extension could create upwards of $9 million cap space this season.

The Packers could also add voided years to Allen Lazard’s restricted free agent deal, which is what they did in 2021 with Robert Tonyan. Or they still have the option to restructure the contracts of Dean Lowry and Mason Crosby. I’d also like to see an extension for Adrian Amos, but there has been no news on that front.

So yes, there are still additional costs that the Green Bay Packers have to be prepared for, but in addition to the $15.13 million that they have in available cap space at the moment, there are other cap-creating moves they can make as well.

Wide receiver is, of course, the position at the front of everyone’s mind that the Packers could address in free agency, and while there is a lot of value in adding a veteran to this unit, as I discussed in a recent article, the perfect solution isn’t out there either. So perhaps Green Bay is exploring trade options instead.

Meanwhile, added depth at cornerback, safety, edge rusher, and offensive tackle would all be worthwhile additions as well. However, at this stage of free agency, perhaps the Packers see how the draft plays out first and then rounds out the roster afterward, just as they did in 2021, signing Campbell and Dennis Kelly in early summer.

As the title suggests, the Packers have to remain salary cap conscious in what they do, but if they want to make another addition or perhaps even two, they have the ability to do so.