Salary cap impact for Packers after reworking Aaron Jones contract
By Paul Bretl
The Green Bay Packers entered Friday at roughly $16.4 million over the salary cap. Their first move on their journey to get out of the red was a big one in the form of a contract restructure and pay cut for running back Aaron Jones.
Due to a previous restructure, Jones came with a massive cap hit, especially for the running back position, of over $20 million this season. At that amount, along with the Packers’ salary cap situation, Jones was never going to play on his current contract. However, cutting him in favor of cap savings was never really an option either.
This was an offense in 2022 that lacked regular playmaking, and Jones was, hands-down, their most consistent playmaking threat–not to mention that the running game as a whole was a catalyst behind the offense’s success. This team is not better without Jones on it, they are worse, and regardless of who the starting quarterback is in 2023, the Packers’ goal should be to compete. Obviously, that’ll be the case if Aaron Rodgers returns, but that should also be the path they take if Jordan Love is the starting quarterback so that they can truly evaluate what he is capable of, and that means having a good team around him.
The news of the contract restructure was first reported by Adam Schefter, who said that Jones’ salary for the season was down to $11 million and came with an $8.52 million signing bonus. We later learned that these final figures included a $5 million pay cut for Jones along with another voided year added onto his contract, allowing that $8.52 million signing bonus to be spread out over five years— which includes two actual contract years and three total voided years.
Now, it’s important to clarify that this was not an extension. The voided year added on to the two previously existing voided years are there for bookkeeping purposes and gives the Packers additional years to push the cap charges to. Jones’ contract still comes to an end following the 2024 season, at which point the cap charges that were pushed into the voided years will come due on the 2025 salary cap.
In total, this freed up $11.8 million in much-needed cap space, according to Ken Ingalls, who independently tracks the Packers’ salary cap situation. Green Bay now has roughly $4.5 million in additional cap space to clear in order to get under the salary cap by the March 15th deadline.
As I wrote about recently, there really aren’t any significant cuts that can or should be made to help clear this space. So what we should expect is more contract restructures in the coming weeks, along with an extension for Rashan Gary, at some point this offseason. Other contract restructure candidates include Preston Smith, Rasul Douglas, De’Vondre Campbell, and David Bakhtiari.