The Green Bay Packers did not use void years on David Bakhtiari’s contract restructure and will save a little less on the salary cap in 2022 than originally believed.
According to Ken Ingalls, who studies the salary cap, the Packers did not add on two void years to Bakhtiari’s deal during the recent restructure, which lowers the overall cap savings for the Packers on the restructure from the full $9,264,000 to $7,710,000 in 2022.
The result is a loss of savings of $1,554,000 on the cap this season. Every dollar counts when a team like the Packers is attempt to shed cap commitments and get below the 2022 cap before March 16.
It’s unclear why void years were not used, although the player has to sign off on void years being added to a contract even in a restructuring scenario.
Teams, including the Packers, have used void years as a way of maximizing savings on restructures. By adding void years to the end of a deal, the team can spread out the converted signing bonus over five years instead of, in Bakhtiari’s case, just three years.
General manager Brian Gutekunst and the Packers got the easy restructures out of the way first. Bakhtiari, Kenny Clark and Aaron Jones all had roster bonuses and high base salaries, so moving around the money and pushing cap charges into the future was simple.
With the adjustment, the restructuring of the contracts of Bakhtiari, Clark and Jones netted the Packers’ total savings of just under $21.7 million.