The Green Bay Packers’ credit card approach to roster-building continued on Wednesday. To help get under the salary cap by Wednesday’s deadline, the Packers and safety Adrian Amos agreed to a restructured contract.
Amos was due to receive a $7 million base salary in 2022, his final season under contract. Instead, he’ll play for the league-minimum $1.12 million. The difference was turned into signing bonus and four void years were added to help with the accounting. That sent his cap number down from $11.98 million to $7.28 million – a difference of $4.70 million.
The downside, though, is he will count $7.95 million against the cap in 2023, when he’s no longer on the roster.
It’s possible a contract extension will be worked out to, A, keep a top performer on the team and, B, avoid the massive pile of dead money that would be left behind.
Amos, who will turn 29 on April 29, has been worth every penny of the four-year, $36 million contract he signed as a free agent in 2019. In 2021, Amos started all 17 games and led the defense with 1,048 snaps.
Mr. Consistency was second on the team with 94 tackles, tied for third with two interceptions and fourth with eight passes defensed. He added another interception in the divisional playoff game vs. San Francisco. He missed only six tackles, giving him the sixth-best tackling percentage among safeties, according to Pro Football Focus.
Combined with receiver Randall Cobb taking a pay cut, which sent his cap number down from $9.53 million, the Packers created $10.155 million of space, according to ESPN.com’s Field Yates.
Added together, the Packers opened the day with about $1.92 million of cap space, according to OTC’s accounting. They used most of that by signing punter Pat O’Donnell, a former teammate of Amos in Chicago.
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