With Salary Cap Set, Packers Have Week to Execute Plan of Attack

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The NFL salary cap reportedly was set at $182.5 million on Wednesday, a bitter disappointment for agents who even on Tuesday spoke hopefully that the cap would wind up between $185 million and $190 million.

Teams must be beneath that figure when the league-year starts on March 17. Unofficially, the Packers are about $9.68 million over the cap, according to OverTheCap.com, $8.35 million over the cap, according to Sportrac, and $9.39 million over the cap, according to Ken Ingalls.

While the situation sounds dire, one agent said Russ Ball, the Packers’ executive vice president/director of football operations/cap guru, could get the team under the cap “in about 2 hours” with simple contract restructures.

With the cap set, Ball and general manager Brian Gutekunst now have a firm number to set in course the rest of its presumably established offseason plan to handle the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which reduced the cap by a whopping $15.7 million compared to last year. As noted by agent Mike McCartney, the cap had averaged a 6.23 percent increase the previous three years but is down 7.92 percent for the upcoming season.

How much money will it take to retain targeted free agents, including restricted tight end Robert Tonyan? How much money would it like on hand to participate in free agency, with a “bloodletting” of veterans predicted by one top agent? How much money will be needed to sign the 2021 draft class? How much money must be kept in reserve for in-season roster moves?

Gutekunst and Ball no doubt had a pretty solid plan in mind to address those questions. Now, with the $182.5 million set, they’ll have a week to get their plan accomplished.

“Russ does a fantastic job of communicating with me and laying things out so that the decision that we need to make moving forward we can put the best football team out there,” Gutekunst said recently. “I’m confident we’re going to be able to do what we need to do to compete next year. There will be some challenges. You certainly don’t plan for a pandemic but, at the same time, I think because Russ has done such a good job with our cap and we’ve been pretty disciplined in our approach over the years that we’re going to be able to take this challenge on without gutting our team.”

The obvious “money trees” are quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who is due $21.5 million in base salary and roster bonus, and receiver Davante Adams, who is due a $12.245 million base salary in his final year under contract. Under potential contract extensions for both players, the team could lessen their cap charges by about $14.4 million.

A third option would be extending outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith, whose massive $22 million cap charge is fueled by a $10.75 million base salary and $5 million roster bonus. Extending him could create another pile of cash.

Fellow outside linebacker Preston Smith has a $16 million cap charge. While Gutekunst sounded committed to bringing him back after he recorded 12 sacks in 2019 but only four sacks in 2020, a restructure could take some of his $6.85 million of base salary and a $4 million roster bonus and move it to 2022.

“They’re really not in bad shape,” one agent said.

A huge boost for the Packers, several agents have said, is not having an owner whose focus is split between the bottom lines of finances and winning.

As of last summer, the Packers had a corporate reserve fund totaling $411 million. That rainy-day fund was created to help the team get through unforeseen challenges such as this one.

“We’re hopeful not to tap into it,” Packers President/CEO Mark Murphy said on July 21. “We’ve done some things to improve our liquidity that we think will help us avoid having to tap into the corporate reserve fund. …

“The purpose of the corporate reserve fund is emergencies. When we put it together, we thought it would be most likely a prolonged strike or a lockout. We didn’t think of a pandemic. Hopefully, this will not be a long-term impact on the organization but if it does, we do have it there and we may use it.”

Having the physical cash on hand, they don’t necessarily have to release veterans to cut player costs. Instead, their fiscal focus can be mostly on the salary cap. To be sure, the cap offers considerable financial restraints – Green Bay’s cap picture for 2022 isn’t rosy, either – but, in terms of real money, the team is on solid ground.

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