From JS
David Bakhtiari
Other than Rodgers, this is the big one. The guess here is because of Bakhtiari’s unpredictable knee health going forward, the Packers will cut him in the offseason at a cap savings of $5.9 million.
Bakhtiari is due $17.5 million in salary and bonuses in ’23. This season he’s played well at left tackle when he’s played. The problem is, the Packers don’t know until a couple of hours before kickoff whether he’s going to play each week, and then don’t know if his knee is going to flare up and force him to out of a game, as it did at Detroit a few weeks ago.
That’s probably how it’s going to be with Bakhtiari from here on out, and it’s an awfully tough way to do business in the NFL. The uncertainty complicates game planning and practice reps. It carries a much greater risk of paying a player a lot of money for missing a lot of games. It’s just hard to see Gutekunst taking that on when he has Nijman as a credible replacement at left tackle, and other tackle candidates such as a high ’23 draft pick and young players on the roster such as Zach Tom, seventh-round pick Rasheed Walker and undrafted rookie Caleb Jones.
Sure, there’s always the chance Bakhtiari finishes out the season without incident, and the Packers for some reason think his prospects going forward will be better than they were this year. But considering this is where he’s at two years removed from his injury, that sounds like wishful thinking.
The Packers theoretically could work out a pay cut with Bakhtiari, but that wouldn’t change the uncertainty about his knee. And it seems like a stretch that Bakhtiari would agree to a pay cut anyway. He’d likely tell the Packers to cut him, and he’d either take his chances on the open market or retire after having topped the $90 million mark in career earnings. Maybe retirement is in his plans anyway.
So the guess here is this will be Bakhtiari’s final season with the Packers.