NFL announces 2023 salary cap, Packers with a lot of work to do
By Paul Bretl
The NFL announced what the 2023 league-wide salary cap will be, and although it is making a significant jump, there will be plenty of work ahead for the Green Bay Packers when it comes to getting out of the red.
According to Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero, the 2023 salary cap will be $224.8 million, up from the $208.2 million figure in 2022.
As far as what this means for the Packers, well, they are still very much in a salary cap hole—even with the increase. Prior to this announcement, Over the Cap projected that the 2023 league-wide salary cap would be $225 million and that the Packers were $16.28 million over that figure. With the actual NFL salary cap being almost identical to what Over the Cap projected, the Packers are still going to be roughly $16 million over.
There are several ways to go about creating the needed cap space. One is through veteran cuts, but there are almost no significant cap-saving moves that the Packers have at their disposal in this regard. As I wrote recently, for a team lacking playmaking in 2022, moving on from Aaron Jones makes little sense from an on-the-field standpoint, even if there is nearly $10 million in cap savings from doing so. David Bakhtiari is another name that has been floated around as a cap casualty, but there simply aren’t enough savings to justify moving on from him, especially after he continued to play at a high level.
Regardless of who the quarterback is for the Packers in 2023, fielding a competitive team should be a must. Obviously, this is the route they’ll go if Aaron Rodgers is back, but to also get the best evaluation of Jordan Love, they can’t get rid of key players. The mindset should be to reload — knowing that some change will occur — and not to reset. Based on Brian Gutekunst’s comments following the season, it does sound like the Packers have no intentions of moving on from Jones or Bakhtiari.
Where the Packers will be able to create the most cap space, however, is through contract restructures. By converting a player’s base salary and/or roster bonus to a signing bonus, the Packers can spread those cap hits out into future years rather than absorbing the entire cap hit in 2023. Jones, Bakhtiari, Jaire Alexander, Kenny Clark, Preston Smith, Rasul Douglas, and De’Vondre Campbell are all restructure candidates.
Two other cap-clearing alternatives are extending Rashan Gary, which will happen, and trading Darnell Savage—although, again, based on Gutey’s comments, that doesn’t sound like an option for the Packers with how thin they are at the safety position.
Other expenses that haven’t been accounted for yet by Over the Cap include cap space for the incoming draft class, the 2023 practice squad, money for in-season spending, and of course, any free agent spending this offseason. So, in reality, the Packers have to clear quite a bit more than just the $16.28 million that Over the Cap is projecting.
The new league year and free agency begins on March 15th, at which time the Packers must be under the salary cap.