The Green Bay Packers need to shed around $50 million of cap space – and possibly even $20 million more if the team wants to use the franchise tag on receiver Davante Adams – by the start of the new league year on March 16.
Unless the Packers want to cut a bunch of veteran players and begin a mini-rebuild, various salary cap mechanics will need to be used to get the team under the cap by next month.
The most obvious mechanic: converting base and roster bonuses into signing bonuses. This is an attractive salary-cap maneuver because the team can spread expensive one-time payments on the cap over several years, which pushes money into the future but also lessens the strain on the cap this year.
The Packers can even add void years to a restructure to spread out the cap hit over more years and create even more savings. If they want to do a full restructure, they can convert part of the base salary and add void years to deals.
Here are three players with the roster bonuses and restructure savings that the Packers will likely use to help solve a part of the team’s cap problem.
