What to Know: No surprise, Packers restructure David Bakhtiari’s deal
By Paul Bretl
As was expected, the Green Bay Packers have restructured David Bakhtiari’s contract, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, freeing up some much-needed cap space.
Bakhtiari’s cap hit was set to be $28.8 million this season, an amount he was never going to play on due to the salary cap impact. So instead, the Packers took the $9.5 million roster bonus that was due on March 17th, along with $5.5 million in base salary, and converted that $15 million to a signing bonus.
The benefit of doing this is that while the cap hits from a roster bonus and base salary have to hit the books in the current year; a signing bonus can be spread out over the life of the contract. The Packers did not add any void years to Bakhtiari’s deal, and in total, they lowered his cap hit in 2023 to $21.54 million, according to Ken Ingalls, saving Green Bay $7.5 million in cap space.
Although needed cap space was created for this year, additional cap charges have been pushed to 2024, inflating Bakhtiari’s cap hit a year from now to over $40 million. This upcoming season is very likely Bakhtiari’s last in Green Bay as he becomes a cut candidate next offseason.
While Bakhtiari did still have to work around his knee injury last season, he was still playing at a very high level when on the field. According to PFF, he ranked seventh in pass-blocking efficiency and allowed no sacks and just 10 pressures. By the middle of the season, Bakhtiari’s knee wasn’t much of an issue either, and he now has a full offseason to prepare for the upcoming season–something that hasn’t been an option for two years now.
Lowering Bakhtiari’s cap hit through a contract restructure was the only real option Green Bay had. Releasing him this offseason never made any sense, given his level of play, along with the Packers only seeing $5.7 million in savings. That is just way too small of an amount for how good of a player he still is.
There has also been some conjecture lately around Bakhtiari being traded to the New York Jets with Aaron Rodgers. But again, that never made any sense. You can read more here, but in short, more important than any cap savings that could come from that move, whether in 2023 or 2024, the goal of this season should be finding out if Jordan Love can be the starting quarterback of the future, and trading away Bakhtiari isn’t how you go about finding that answer. Any success for Love, and the offense as a whole, begins with the play up front.
Sure, even with the restructure a trade could still happen. However, if the odds of that happening before were slim, they’ve just decreased.
The Packers now have roughly $24 million in available cap space once this restructure is accounted for. However, by trading Rodgers, his cap hit of $31.6 million turns into a dead cap hit of $40.3 million, thus lowering that $24 million total by almost $9 million. To make matters potentially worse, if the Packers eat any of his guaranteed salary, that dead cap hit will increase.
Restructuring Bakhtiari was the last significant cap-saving move that the Packers had left. But there are still a few other contract restructure candidates remaining in Rasul Douglas, De’Vondre Campbell, Jon Runyan, and Pat O’Donnell.