With Bakhtiari Signed, What’s Next for Unprecedented Offseason?

The Green Bay Packers were one of many teams over the projected salary cap in 2021, and that was before signing David Bakhtiari. Here's the map to fielding a winning roster.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst took care of the biggest and most important domino by signing left tackle David Bakhtiari to a monster contract extension on Saturday.

Now, it’ll be up to Gutekunst to build a team around Aaron Rodgers, who will have the third-highest cap charge among quarterbacks in 2021, Davante Adams, who will have the sixth-highest cap charge among receivers, Za’Darius Smith, who will have the seventh-highest cap charge among edge rushers and now Bakhtiari, who is scheduled to have the third-highest cap charge among offensive tackles.

Teams face an unprecedented challenge due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With no fans buying tickets into the stadium to watch a game – and perhaps buy a beer or three – the salary cap is expected to fall from $198.2 million this year to $175 million next year. That’s a dip of $23.2 million for a league accustomed to annual increases in the neighborhood of $10 million. Nobody budgeted for the calamity that’s to come.

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“I think this was actually an important part of what we’re trying to do,” Gutekunst said on Sunday. “As we move forward in ’21, which is going to be a challenging year for everyone in the National Football league, this gives us a little bit more flexibility moving forward. Obviously, David is a very important part of our team. I think he approaches it the right way. Takes care of himself, works really hard. It’s very important to him. I think he really wanted to be here. It actually gives us a little more flexibility to move forward.”

Green Bay will use some accounting to lessen the blow. Bakhtiari’s contract includes three huge roster bonuses totaling $30 million. The expectation is Green Bay will turn the 2021 roster bonus into signing bonus, which will shift some of that money away from the 2021 salary cap and put it on the 2022, 2023 and 2024 caps, when the financial picture for teams will be much, much brighter.

Once that is done, Bakhtiari’s 2021 cap charge will be about $11.143 million. That’s about $3 million less than what it would have cost to use the franchise tag, with the obvious benefit of having a four-time All-Pro at a premium position under contract through 2024.

“There’s some avenues as we move forward that allows us to reduce his number in the next couple years that maybe we wouldn’t have been able to do if we couldn’t come to agreement,” Gutekunst said.

As it stands, based on OverTheCap.com’s projections, the Packers have about $2.166 million of cap space for 2021. That, however, includes only the 39 players under contract in 2021. Offseason caps are based on the 51 most-expensive contracts. That reality actually puts Green Bay in the hole by about $5.75 million. Moreover, that figure doesn’t include Bakhtiari’s contract. So, making Bakhtiari the 40th player on a 51-man roster, the Packers would be in the neighborhood of $16.3 million over the cap.

Releasing outside linebacker Preston Smith, safety Adrian Amos and right tackle Rick Wagner would do the trick, but only barely, so there would be no money to re-sign running back Aaron Jones, center Corey Linsley, or to make any outside additions to the roster.

One option would be to extend receiver Davante Adams. Next season will be his final one under contract. He’s due a base salary of $12 million and has a cap charge of $16.6 million. Tacking on years would be a win-win for the Packers, as it would lock up a premier player while creating immediate cap space.

With the Packers among 13 teams projected to be over the cap, based on OTC’s projections, there could be a flood of quality players on the market. Can Gutekunst and Russ Ball find a way to take advantage?

“I think obviously we have some players that are coming up that we’d certainly like to re-sign if we can,” Gutekunst said. “This year I think is going to be a unique free agent class, only because a lot of teams are going to be trying to get under the number. The players that might become available to us during the March period may be a little different than it has in the past, and we want to have some flexibility to do those things if we can. So, I think it’s a combination of that. We’ve always believed that we’d like to take care of our own first, that’s very important to us, but we’d also like to have some flexibility to see what the market might bring in March.”