Salary Cap Stood in Way of Potential Gilmore Deal

Acquiring Stephon Gilmore would have eaten up most of the Green Bay Packers' remaining cap space. Why not just restructure someone? Here's the answer.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers had more than 5 million reasons not to acquire Stephon Gilmore.

Namely, that’s the salary cap charge the Packers would have absorbed in trading for the former All-Pro cornerback.

The Packers started the day with about $7.1 million of cap space, according to the latest figures from the NFLPA. Trading for Gilmore would have meant absorbing the rest of his $7 million base salary. That’s $5.79 million of salary and roster bonus, according to Brad Spielberger of Pro Football Focus and OverTheCap.com.

So, could the Packers have made the accounting work? Yes. However, they need cap space to get through the rest of this season. The raiding of practice squads to bolster depth due to injuries at tight end (Tyler Davis to replace Dominique Dafney) and linebacker (La’Darius Hamilton to replace Za’Darius Smith) cost money. Every player promoted from the practice squad means a significant bump in salary. Even the weekly practice-squad elevations, such as receiver Equanimeous St. Brown last week to replace injured Marquez Valdes-Scantling, take a bite out of the apple.

The easy solution, under normal circumstances, would have been to restructure a contract to create that space. But general manager Brian Gutekunst flipped every cushion on the couch this past offseason to get the current edition of the team under the COVID-impacted cap. The only players with contracts that could have been restructured to create cap space belong to quarterback Aaron Rodgers and receiver Davante Adams in the form of contract extensions.

Rodgers, of course, is undecided about returning to Green Bay in 2022. And Adams is in the final year under contract and might not want to be tied to a roster without Rodgers.

Complicating all of that is the barrage of restructures this past offseason left the team more than $44 million over next year’s cap ceiling of $208.2 million. So, acquiring the 31-year-old cornerback and signing him to a cap-friendly contract extension would have been difficult if not impossible.

So, the Carolina Panthers acquired Gilmore for a sixth-round pick in the 2023 draft.

Carolina, which like Green Bay has started this season with a 3-1 record, started the day $19.2 million under the cap, according to the NFLPA. So, unlike the Packers, the Panthers had plenty of space for a partial-season rental. For Gilmore, it’s a homecoming of sorts; he’s from Rock Hill, S.C.