The four-year contract extension signed by Green Bay Packers edge rusher Preston Smith includes a $12 million signing bonus, low base salaries for the first three seasons, big roster bonuses in each of the next two years and a pay-as-you-go structuring.
Aaron Wilson of Pro Football Network provided the details on the new deal.
Smith’s base salaries stay under $6 million in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The team put in a $7,500,000 roster bonus in 2023 and a $5,400,000 roster bonus in 2024, confirming the year-by-year structuring.
The extension drops Smith’s cap number from $19,720,588 to $11,460,588, for a total savings on the cap in 2022 of $8,260,000.
Smith’s cap number stays under $15 million each of the next three seasons.
Here’s the contract structuring, via Over the Cap:
The Packers have outs early in the deal. In fact, the Packers can start saving money on the cap via release as soon as 2023. The team will have to decide next offseason if it wants to pay the $7,500,000 roster bonus or move on. The same decision comes a year later.
The only true guaranteed money in the deal is Smith’s $12 million signing bonus. Whether or not he collects the big roster bonuses in Year 2 and 3 of the deal will depend on his effectiveness as an edge rusher opposite Rashan Gary in 2022 and 2023.
This deal has to be viewed as a win for the Packers. The team gets back an experienced and valuable player at a premium position while lowering Smith’s cap commitment in 2022 and not committing big money past the first year.
Smith, who turns 30 in November, produced nine sacks and a career-high 62 pressures last season. He has 25 career sacks since joining the Packers in 2019.