The Green Bay Packers agreed to a new, three-year deal with veteran kicker Mason Crosby on Saturday.
According to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the deal will pay Crosby $12.9 million over the three years, with $6 million paid during the first year and $9.5 million during the first two years.
The deal should put the Packers just under $20 million in available cap space moving forward.
The money paid out to Crosby – $6 million in Year 1, $3.5 million in Year 2 and $3.4 million in Year 3 – helps paint a picture of the potential structuring of the deal, although not all details, such as the signing bonus, are known.
A simple way to project the structure of the deal would be to assume a $3 million signing bonus, a reasonable amount for a $12.9 million deal. In this scenario, Crosby’s base salary in 2020 would need to be $3 million (to match the $6 million paid out in Year 1), and given the proration of a signing bonus over the life of a deal, Crosby’s cap hit in 2020 would be $4 million ($3 million base salary plus $1 million prorated signing bonus).
Ken Ingalls, a CPA who follows the Packers salary cap, used the $4 million cap hit projection for Crosby’s new deal to show the impact on the Packers’ current cap situation. His calculations put the Packers at just over $19.7 million in available cap space:
The Packers can still add almost $13 million to their salary cap by releasing tight end Jimmy Graham and offensive lineman Lane Taylor. They may need the extra spending power to extend the contract of Pro Bowl defensive lineman Kenny Clark, re-sign right tackle Bryan Bulaga and add any veteran help in free agency.
Crosby’s cap hit was $4.85 million in 2019, the last year of his four-year, $16.1 million deal.
