The Green Bay Packers have signed their young left tackle to a massive contract extension.
The team announced that David Bakhtiari was signed to a four-year, $51.67 million extension on Tuesday. The new deal averages $12 million a year and makes him among the five highest paid offensive lineman in the league.
#Packers agreed to terms with LT David Bakhtiari on a 4-year extension worth up to $51.67M. New money avgs is $12M per year. Top 5 for OLs
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 13, 2016
Green Bay Packers Sign Left Tackle David Bakhtiari to 4-Year Extension
Bakhtiari was set to become a free agent next summer when his rookie contract expired. But general manager Ted Thompson did not want to wait to prolong the young player. With this new contract Bakhtiari will be wearing Green and Gold until 2020.
Although there is no official statement proving that punter Tim Mashtay and left guard Josh Sitton’s release had anything to do with clearing up cap space for Bakhtiari’s extension, and the possible extension of center JC Tretter, guard TJ Lang, and the other players set to become free agents, there is no question that Thompson needed that cap space to make this work.
Cutting the two veterans gave “Ted Thompson $7.325 million more in salary-cap space, raising his available room to sign contract extensions or carry over to next season to $16,694,945,” according to Tom Silverstein for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Silverstein also writes that since both of these veteran players were in the final year of their respective contracts, “there are no future years of pro-rated guaranteed pay – known as ‘dead money’ that must be charged to next year’s cap.”
Bakhtiari is a prime example of the saying ‘your best ability is your availability’ as he has missed only two games since being drafted in the fourth round in 2013 out of the University of Colorado.
The “few offensive linemen with an average yearly contract value of $12 million are all left tackles: Dallas’ Tyron Smith, Kansas City’s Eric Fisher, Washington’s Trent Williams, New Orleans’ Terron Armstead, and Buffalo’s Cordy Glenn,” according to Evan ‘Tex’ Western for SB Nation.
