The Green Bay Packers have restructured the contracts of CB Jaire Alexander and EDGE Preston Smith according to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, creating $16.1 million in salary cap space for the Packers.
The team took a similar approach to both restructures by converting roster bonuses and almost all base salary over the minimum to a signing bonus and adding a voidable contract year for salary cap purposes. In both cases the Packers left the workout bonuses and per game bonuses untouched in the contract. This would likely be because that is salary that can easily be forfeited by a player if he is hurt or fails to attend the majority of offseason workouts.
The team ultimately converted $11.82 million of Alexander’s compensation for 2023 into a signing bonus, lowering his salary cap number by $9.456 million to $10.755 million. Alexander’s salary cap figure will rise by $2.364 million in each remaining season of his contract including the newly added void year. The restructure increases the dead money to $27.456 million in 2024 which should effectively guarantee his roster spot next year despite having no guarantees that year. The dead money impact drops to $19 million in 2025.
Smith had $8.3 million of his salary converted to a signing bonus, lowering his cap number by $6.64 million to $6.4 million in 2023. His cap figure in each remaining contract year will increase by $1.66 million. His dead money will increase in 2024 by $6.4 million to $13.96 million if released. These restructures are often riskier with older players like Smith because sometimes the salary cap space that is created winds up all hitting the following season as age catches up with the player.
The two restructures have put the Packers under the cap for 2023, leaving them with approximately $6.4 million in cap room. While that would not be enough space to trade Aaron Rodgers away the team does have more levers they can pull to create cap room. Silverstein mentioned the team may be working on an extension for Kenny Clark and a possible contract modification for David Bakhtiari. The other players that could save some cap room for the team via restructures are Rashan Gary ($7.85 million), Darnell Savage ($5.5 million) and Rasul Douglas ($3.4 million). Gary and Savage are in the final year of their rookie contracts and would need to either agree to add four void years for the Packers to realize any savings or sign an extension that lowers their cap hits.