Trading David Bakhtiari makes very little sense for the Packers
By Paul Bretl
The discussion around the Green Bay Packers trading David Bakhtiari is all just conjecture at this point. There haven’t been any sort of reports stating that was a possibility.
However, the idea was fueled by New York Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner saying, “it’s package deals all over,” in reference to trading for Aaron Rodgers. One could also point to the fact that Bakhtiari’s deal still hasn’t been restructured – although there is still time – something that was considered a given with how large his 2023 cap hit is and something Brian Gutekunst said would get done soon when he was at the NFL combine last week.
Again, there are no confirmed reports saying that this could happen, but if there is even the slightest chance of Bakhtiari heading to the Jets, I’m not a fan of it at all. In fact, I think it’s a bad idea.
Bakhtiari continued to work through his knee injury last season, but that was never an issue during the second half of the season, and he now has a full offseason ahead of him where he’s healthy to train for the upcoming year–which hasn’t been the case for two years now. When Bakhtiari was on the field, he was still playing at a very high level. He allowed no sacks, 10 pressures, and ranked seventh in PFF’s pass-blocking efficiency metric on true pass sets.
If the Packers trade Bakhtiari and his contract as it’s currently constructed, they will save only $5.7 million in cap space–an unjustifiable amount, given the caliber of player that he is. Now, Green Bay could restructure the deal and then trade him to free up more room, but quite frankly, this shouldn’t be about creating an extra $6 million in cap space for 2023. Or getting Bakhtiari’s contract off the books for 2024. It’s about giving Jordan Love, a first-year starter and former first-round pick who has been on the bench for three seasons and is now replacing one of the most talented quarterbacks ever, the opportunity to succeed.
Any sort of potential success begins with the play of the offensive line, and losing Bakhtiari, without question, makes that unit worse. Can Zach Tom and Yosh Nijman be capable starters? For sure. Are they at Bakhtiari’s level? Not at all. The same can be said for any rookie brought in as well.
As we look back at the 2022 season, there were a number of things that went wrong for this offense, especially early on in the season, but the injuries and sub-par play to the offensive line were key contributors to those problems–and poor offensive line play also contributed to Green Bay’s Week 18 loss to Detroit. Without the run game, the passing game wasn’t strong enough to lean on. When dropping back, Rodgers was either under pressure, or the entire gameplan on offense had to shift in order to get the ball out of his hands quickly.
Why risk putting Love and the Packers’ offense into that environment? The goal of this upcoming season, outside of simply winning games, is to see if Love can be the guy moving forward, and trading away the team’s All-Pro left tackle isn’t how you go about doing that. If there is anyone who wants to see Love succeed, you would think that Gutekunst is at the top of that list after going out on a limb to draft him in 2020.
It’s also important to note that from the Jets’ perspective, how would they take both Rodgers’ and Bakhtiari’s contracts on? Right now, New York has roughly $4 million in available cap space. To acquire these two, they would need to have roughly $32 million available, and that doesn’t include the cap space needed to re-sign any of their own free agents, to make any outside additions, their incoming draft class, the practice squad, or space leftover for any in-season spending. The Jets have a few cap-saving cuts that can be made like most teams, but I’m guessing not that amount.
After the regular season, Gutekunst told reporters that left tackles don’t grow on trees. Following the Packers’ Week 7 loss to Washington, Matt LaFleur talked about how the gameplan is different when Bakhtiari is out there vs. when he’s not. Trading Bakhtiari – along with Rodgers – would give the Packers the chance to hit the reset button to a degree with the salary cap, but I just can’t get on board with that idea because, ultimately, that makes the offensive line worse for Love.
Perhaps this all ends up as a moot point, and I wrote this article for nothing. It is all just conjecture at the moment, after all–or at least I hope it is.