The Packers needed to free up some cap space if the team wants to retain the services of multiple players on a long-term basis. The first player the Packers decided to retain was Dean Lowry. Rob Demovsky provided the full details of Dean Lowry's new $6.77M AAV deal in this tweet. I have put the information into the following table:

Yr Base SB RB Active W/O Cap Cash 19 2.05M 1.5M 3.646M 8.05M 20 1.0M 1.5M 2.0M .4M .3M 5.2M 3.7M 21 4.1M 1.5M .4M .3M 6.3M 4.8M 22 4.9M 1.5M .4M .5M 7.3M 5.8M Tot 10M 6.0M 2.0M 1.2M 1.1M - - - - 20.3M

Under the end of the CBA rules, one needs to focus on the 2020 year and on the first three years of the contract. The 2020 "salary" excluding the traditional signing bonus totals $3.7M (base, roster bonus, game active bonus and the workout bonus). 30% of $3.7M equals $1.11M, so the 2021 "salary" can be a maximum of $1.11M plus $3.7M, or $4.81M. Lowry's 2021 salary equals $4.1M plus $.4M game active plus $.3M workout bonus for a total of $4.8M. So, Lowry's deal complies with the 30% rule (by about $10K). It does not matter if Lowry fails to earn the full game active bonus in 2020 (which is necessary to make the deal comply with the 30% Rule: the deal only has to comply when it is submitted to the league).

To comply with the Deion Rule, the "salary" over the first three years of the contract must equal or exceed the signing bonus prorations. Here, the prorations total $4.5M and the "salary" easily exceeds that amount. Note that Lowry's 2019 cap number is more than the $3.55M the numbers above would suggest because he had a $95,000 signing bonus proration from his rookie deal that has to be accounted for.

Current Cap Situation:

Overthecap is showing the Packers with $14.32M in 2019 cap space under the Rule of 51 and projects the Packers to have $9.07M in cap space in 2020 after the Lowry signing and the release of Mike Daniels. Fans can anticipate that the 2019 cap space will decrease by a minimum $2.4M or so when the regular season starts. The minimum for the practice squad players is $136,000 times ten players, and the cap numbers for the 52nd and 53rd players on the roster will begin to count.

One might project the Packers to have roughly $12M in cap space when the regular season starts, reduced by any misfortune, such as players landing on the Injured Reserve List or PUP list. Sportrac suggests that the Packers have about $800,000 more in cap space. Note that cap space usually decreases over the course of the season as players get hurt or the team acquires players, but the amount varies.

Did The Packers Need Daniels' Cap Savings?

There have been plenty of articles on whether releasing Daniels hurts the Packers' chances of contending in 2019, and if so, by how much. That is not my purview, so let me confine this to cap considerations, in so far as that is possible.

The general consensus is that the Packers want to keep Martinez and Clark, at a minimum. General Manager Gutekunst has publicly expressed his desire to keep Clark around, but has been more circumspect about Martinez.

Let's look at extending Martinez. In a previous article, "End of CBA Rules Are Just A Speed Bump," I laid out the details of a possible extension for Martinez. Given that Lowry just signed for $6.77M AAV, extending Martinez at $8.77M AAV does not seem outlandish.

The Packers have about $12M in 2019 cap space and a projected $9.07M for 2020. Looking at Martinez' proposed extension, signing him to the proposed deal would reduce 2019 space by $300,000 to $11.7M, but the proposed $6.5M cap charge in 2020 would reduce GB's projected 2020 cap space from $9.07M to $2.52M.

Please recall that I proposed using an option bonus in 2020 to keep Martinez' cap number down in 2020. Of course, Gutekunst and Russ Ball could go wild by using log escalators in 2021, but that would push a large cap number into the 2021 cap year. At this point, I am still using a three to five year window for the Packers to get back to and win a Super Bowl, so having a sustainable cap situation through the 2023 season seems imperative to me.

Extending Martinez using the details I suggested would leave $2.52M plus perhaps $11M in rollover (for a total of $13.52M) to sign Clark. That would be an ample amount of cap space. I previously proposed an extension for Clark at $13.77M AAV in new money that reduced the Packers' cap space by just $352,000 over the 2019 and 2020 seasons, but obviously that was before Grady Jarrett's $17M AAV deal. Jarrett is arguably in Clark's class, but Jarrett was set to earn $15.2M in 2019 since the Falcons had applied the franchise tag. The Packers have Clark under contract for two more full seasons.

Will the two years of control over Clark result in a lower AAV for him? I suspect not. I would expect his agent to insist on tacking on three or four years using Jarrett's $17M AAV as a baseline, and increasing it by expected cap inflation to boot. The cap has increased by 6% the last two seasons. $17M times 1.06 percent for 2020 equals $18.02M, times anothe six percent for 2021 equals $19.1M AAV in new money beginning in 2021.

The Packers could, of course, extend Clark while leaving his Clark's current cap charges for 2019 and 2020 largely unchanged, but that would be difficult and I suspect the team will want to smooth out his cap charges like they did in the Aaron Rodgers extension. I suspect that an extension for Clark would mean that his cap hit for 2019 and 2020 increases by perhaps $4M.

Since the Packers have $13.52M in combined cap space for 2019 and 2020 under this scenario, a $4M increase in Clark's cap charges for 2019 and 2020 would leave $9.52M in cap space, of which $7.91M is derived from releasing Mike Daniels. The Packers would have had just $1.61M in available cap space if the team had not released Daniels.

What about retaining the services of Allison, Crosby, Fackrell, Spriggs, Lewis (or a replacement #2 tight end), and even Bulaga? If any of them blossom, the Packers would need all of the aforementioned $9.52M to sign even a couple of them. Remember, due to the 30% Rule for 2020, the Packers cannot give a player a large signing bonus and a minimum salary in 2020, but they could use some of the other loopholes. Patrick, McCray, Pankey and Tyson also would all be RFAs if they make the team this year, leading to decsions about giving some or all of them tenders.

I personally need to see Allison, Fackrell, and Spriggs play in 2019 before deciding whether to re-sign them, and to see how the other internal replacements on the team perform. It would not surprise me if Gutekunst also wants to see how these players and their possible replacements play before offering new money to the team's UFAs.

Is cutting Graham to gain $8M in cap savings for 2020 a foregone conclusion? Publicly Gutekunst has suggested that he expects Graham to rebound this year, and no one truly knows how Sternberger and Tonyan will look. The Packers needed to decide about Daniels now (or at least prior to the start of the regular season) to secure his cap savings. Were the Packers willing to enter the 2020 season with Sternberger and Tonyan as the #1 and #2 tight ends without seeing how they performed in 2019?

As a note, I believe that Bakhtiari could be extended without increasing his cap hits for 2019 and 2020 because he has sufficient "salary" already scheduled for 2020 ($10M in base pay and another $1M in workout and active game bonuses).

Of course, there are other ways of gaining cap space. The Packers could tinker with Rodgers' contract or extend Bakhtiari and reduce his cap number for 2020, but not by too much. On the whole though, including retaining some flexibility in 2020, I submit that the Packers needed to free up some cap space, and Daniels fit their need.