<\/p>\n
When contracts are initially reported, you hear a lot about guarantees that wind up not being \u201cfully guaranteed.\u201d What does that mean? Well, usually, it\u2019s roster bonuses or salary that is guaranteed for injury \u2014 meaning guaranteed if a player injured in the previous season can\u2019t clear a medical by a certain date \u2014 but is really a team option if a player is healthy.<\/p>\n
After looking through the Green Bay Packers\u2019 veteran contracts, six players appear to have deals with those type of terms going into the 2025 offseason.<\/p>\n
Officially, the new league year will begin on March 12th. On the third day of the new league year, Green Bay defensive end Rashan Gary<\/strong>, defensive tackle Kenny Clark<\/strong> and safety Xavier McKinney<\/strong> will all lock in non-guaranteed roster bonuses, if they remain on the roster. Gary is due $8.7 million, Clark is due $7.5 million and McKinney is due $8.5 million. None of their bonuses are guaranteed until March 14th and these numbers also don\u2019t include their non-guaranteed base salary \u2014 $6.8 million for Gary, $1.3 million for Clark and $2.75 million for McKinney.<\/p>\n Obviously, the Packers want to keep McKinney, who made All-Pro in his first year with the club. While Gary and Clark had disappointing 2025 seasons, though, it\u2019s going to be hard to get off of those deals just one full year after signing those players to extensions. Gary\u2019s 2025 cap hit is $25.5 million but his dead cap is $25.6 million, which means the team would basically break even by letting him walk. Clark, meanwhile, has a $20.4 million cap hit and a $26.9 million dead cap, meaning that the team would actually be short $6.5 million cap dollars in 2025 if they moved on from the tackle.<\/p>\n To put this simply, Green Bay needs their next defensive line coach to get the most out of those two, because they really have no other option but to ride it out with Gary and Clark this upcoming season.<\/p>\n Two days later, on March 16th, running back Josh Jacobs<\/strong> will lock in his $5.93 million roster bonus. That will be most of his compensation for the 2025 season, as he is slated for $1.17 million in non-guaranteed salary next year.<\/p>\n On the same day, quarterback Jordan Love<\/strong>\u2019s 2026 roster bonus, worth $39.5 million, will fully guarantee. Love\u2019s $10.4 million salary is already guaranteed for the 2026 season. Between Love\u2019s guaranteed 2026 salary ($10.4 million), 2024 signing bonus that has yet to be accounted for on the salary cap ($48.5 million) and triggered 2026 option ($39.5 million), the cost to release Love in the 2026 offseason would then balloon to nearly $100 million. As we wrote earlier this month, Love isn\u2019t going anywhere anytime soon.<\/p>\n The sixth and final roster bonus to pay attention to this offseason is for cornerback Keisean Nixon<\/strong>, who on the relative scale is set to receive a modest $2.8 million non-guaranteed roster bonus on March 17th. He also carries a $1.17 million non-guaranteed salary in 2025. Based on how he performed at outside cornerback in the second half of the 2024 season, you can expect the Packers to pick that one up.<\/p>\n Notably, Green Bay doesn\u2019t have any significant dates remaining in cornerback Jaire Alexander\u2019s contract, their biggest decision to make this offseason. Alexander received roster bonuses in March of both 2023 and 2024, but those bonuses have run out in the third year of his four-year extension. Now, the decision for the Packers is fairly clear: Do they want to pay his $16.15 million salary\/$25.48 million cap hit in 2025 or would they rather just pay the $19.09 million dead cap and let Alexander walk?<\/p>\n Without a date to trigger a release, the Packers can play the long game with Alexander, allowing them to leverage keeping him on their roster while the league spends its cap space. That could be a key chess piece in negotiating a potential restructured deal with the former Pro Bowl cornerback who has struggled to stay on the field lately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 14th through 17th will be big for Green Bay\u2019s roster<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-bay-packers"],"yoast_head":"\n