Packers restructure Kenny Clark’s contract

Posted by Josh Alper on March 1, 2023, 7:50 AM EST
NFL: JAN 01 Vikings at Packers
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The Packers have freed up some more space under the salary cap.

Field Yates of ESPN reports that the team has restructured the contract of defensive tackle Kenny Clark. The team converted $13.835 million of his compensation for the 2023 season into a signing bonus, which creates $11.068 million in cap room in Green Bay.

Clark is signed through the 2024 season and his contract includes void years that will enable the Packers to further spread out his remaining cap hit. He started every game last season and recorded 53 tackles, four sacks, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery.

The Packers previously reworked the deals of cornerback Jaire Alexander and edge rusher Preston Smith to create $16 million in cap space and they could do the same with left tackle David Bakhtiari to free up more room before the new league year gets underway.

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14 responses to “Packers restructure Kenny Clark’s contract”

  3. ariani1985 says:

    How can such a bad team be in cap hell?
    +++++
    $30 million dollars below what the one and done Vikings are before the Rodgers makes its decision. Rob Brzezenski is rolling over in his grave.

  4. The Packer brass is really good at managing the salary cap. It’s not like they’re giving a mediocre quarterback bloated fully guaranteed contracts or anything like that.

  6. Kick the can down the road. It will catch up to them once all of these players age out.

  7. They have to create cap space for the big hit they are going to have to take from Rodgers when they have to cut him.

  8. The Packer brass is really good at managing the salary cap. It’s not like they’re giving a mediocre quarterback bloated fully guaranteed contracts or anything like that.
    ==========

    Aaron Rodgers 2023 cap hit – $31,623,568 (9th among QBs)

    It could be worse….

    Jared Goff – $30,975,000 (10th)
    Kirk Cousins – $36,250,000 (6th)

  9. They have to create cap space for the big hit they are going to have to take from Rodgers when they have to cut him.
    ==========

    They’d have to clear $99,778,568…….

  11. I’m not sure why there’s this new trend of a couple people posting all over PFT that the cap isn’t real or that “cap hell” isn’t real. The bill always comes due, it just depends on when.

    For anyone claiming otherwise, all you need to do is look at how these moves have affected the Packers 2024 cap. There’s no shortage of quality sites that track this information and you can see that the Packers free cap is down to 25 million next year because as I’ve said before, the bill eventually comes due.

    Now that being said, the Packers have generally done a good job in structuring team-friendly contracts that give the front office flexibility. It makes it easier to do these kinds of restructuring without too much damage (with one of the big exceptions being AR’s contract). But there’s still limits as they already have 17 million in dead cap this year.

    I’ll contrast this with the Vikings who are over the cap right now, but are 95 million under for next year. The Vikings will inevitably do some of what the Packers are doing here now to free up cash, but the point is that if you understand the cap and how the rules work, you know that cap hell is not a myth.

    Mind you, I would not say the Packers are in “cap hell”. But they do have a very large albatross around their collective neck with the AR contract and it’s going to limit their maneuverability as long as they own that contract.

  12. Smart, can you imagine throwing a bunch of money at a diva WR who disappears when his team needs him most? I like teams who spend money where it matters. America’s Team does it again!

  13. Packer brass doing what they have to do to make room for whatever direction they go. It’ll all play out next season. I’d be concerned if I were a Packer fan and they weren’t restructuring contracts.

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