Post June 1st is an Important Date to Know for Green Bay Packers

The NFL dominates our timelines year round, but June is typically the slowest time of the year with free agency at a crawl, the draft well behind us, and only a few OTA and minicamp practices taking place. But for the Green Bay Packers — along with the rest of the NFL — June 2nd marks an important date to know.

The reason why, you ask? Well, the salary cap ramifications that come with cutting or trading a player after June 1st are different than if that same move had been made at any point prior to that date.

For a more in-depth look at why this happens, click here to read more from Over the Cap (OTC). But in short, if a player is cut or traded prior to June 1st, the dead cap charges — or money that was already paid to the player and counts against the cap even if they aren’t on the roster — hits the books that year. However, after June 1st, the dead money then splits over two seasons.

So how could this affect the Green Bay Packers?

At the moment, Over the Cap has the Packers with $17.02 million in available cap space. But as I discussed in a recent article, when you factor in other unaccounted for expenses, such as paying the practice squad, the cap hits for the final two roster members, and in-season reserves, what Green Bay actually has to spend for the remainder of the year is quite minimal. Or once again, in short, the Packers could still use some additional cap space.

As far as who the Packers could choose to move on from, the name that likely comes up the most in this discussion is Dean Lowry. This is the final year of his deal, and with the additions of Jarran Reed and Devonte Wyatt, this is the deepest interior defensive line room that Green Bay has had in years. Moving on from Lowry would save the Packers $5.95 million in 2022.

Another name is Mason Crosby, who is coming off a 2022 season where like the rest of the special teams unit, he would struggle, making only 73.5% of his field goal attempts. If the Green Bay Packers were to move on from the veteran kicker in favor of Dominik Eberle, the team would save $3.4 million in cap space, per OTC.

Now, having said all of that, I don’t believe that either player is going anywhere.

While the Packers’ interior defensive line group should be the best we’ve seen in some time, Lowry is coming off a career year in terms of quarterback pressures generated and is someone who I believe is valued much more within the organization because of the dirty work that he consistently does that may go unnoticed. He may not always fill the stat sheet, but when Lowry is playing well, other players around him benefit.

As far as Crosby goes, while he certainly needs to be better, between the poor snaps, bad holds, and missed blocks, it’s not as if each of those missed field goals falls squarely on his shoulders. On top of that, there are obvious risks that come with Green Bay relying on Eberle, who has two career field goal attempts.

June 2nd is an important date to know around the NFL, and who knows, maybe Brian Gutekunst will surprise me–it wouldn’t be the first time. With that said, this is a Green Bay Packers team with Super Bowl aspirations, and this roster does not improve by moving on from Lowry or Crosby.