At the start of the week, the Green Bay Packers had four players aged 29 or older on their roster. As of Thursday morning, that number is down to just one.
Preston Smith, while not the longest-tenured current Packer, is the oldest player on the roster at 31 years old. But gone are three of the other four players referenced above, as the Packers moved on from David Bakhtiari, De’Vondre Campbell, and Aaron Jones in recent days. Each of those three players will leave some significant dead money on the Packers’ salary cap, but at the same time the releases free up cap room to accommodate the signings of players like Xavier McKinney, Josh Jacobs, and Keisean Nixon — all three of whom are currently 26 years old or younger.
The team’s youth undoubtedly helps to keep its overall salary cap commitments low. In fact, after those new arrivals (or, in Nixon’s case, re-signings) are finalized, the team will only have 10 players on contracts other than rookie or league-minimum agreements.
Some of those veterans still have large cap hits, such as Kenny Clark, who has a cap hit of more than $27 million for 2024 and could be a possibility for an extension. Jaire Alexander will cost approximately $24 million. And Jordan Love is set to get a new contract this summer. Despite those players’ large contracts and plenty of dead money on the books, the Packers are maintaining competitiveness in 2024 because to so many important contributors still being aboard.
That should continue into this year’s draft as well. Brian Gutekunst has 11 draft picks to work with come April, and even if he trades a few of them to move up, the team will have plenty of players coming in on cheap deals. If they can put together a draft class with an impact that is even nearly comparable to last year’s, this team will be well-positioned for success in the coming years.
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