When the Green Bay Packers signed left tackle David Bakhtiari to a contract extension, we assumed it would be front-loaded. After releasing guard Josh Sitton, the Packers had a bit over $16 million in available cap space for 2016.
It would make sense, if you’re going to pay a left tackle market value, that you’d pay a large portion of that deal in year one to mitigate the cap hits in future years. The Packers have done the opposite.
Here are the cap hits for each year of Bakhtiari’s deal.
- 2016: $4.019 million
- 2017: $6.171 million
- 2018: $11.2 million
- 2019: $14.2 million
- 2020: $14.2 million
We’re not saying it’s wrong, but we’re not sure why the Packers wouldn’t front load the contract. One reason could be because they want to extend one or two (or more) players during the 2016 season.
They have plenty of capable potential free agents.
Another important thing to note is the Packers could part ways with Bakhtiari toward the end of his contract if they wanted to save some money or his play slipped.
Although there would be dead money from his signing bonus, the Packers would actually gain a little over $1 million by releasing Bakhtiari prior to the 2019 league year. They’d gain over $7 million in 2020.