Acme Packing Company
The answer to the question: They sort of do, sort of don’t.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that “outside team interest is likely to increase” for Pittsburgh Steelers pass-rusher and Wisconsin native T.J. Watt following the Steelers’ trade for defensive back Jalen Ramsey and tight end Jonnu Smith. As we’ve talked about before, the Steelers have paid the least amount of cash of any team for players since the pandemic season and Watt has an ongoing holdout with the team, as he’s looking for a new contract.
At the moment, Watt has a $21.05 million base salary for 2025, which would be transferred to a team that would potentially trade for the six-time All-Pro.
Can the Green Bay Packers pay that right now? Sort of.
At the moment, the Packers have $35.5 million in available cap space, according to Over the Cap. With that in mind, remember that offseason cap accounting is different than in-season cap accounting.
In the offseason, only the top 51 cap hits on the roster count against the cap. In the regular season, this number includes not only the full 53-man roster but also the practice squad (which ends up costing the team about a combined $4 million over the full year), injury settlements and players on the injured reserve. At the moment, the minimum salary is $840,000 for an undrafted rookie player. That number goes up to $1,255,000, depending on how many years of service an NFL player has.
So, can Green Bay make this trade? Well, technically yes. It would be an insanely tight squeeze, even if their cap space on paper is $35.5 million, because of the difference between in-season and offseason accounting. For every player who ends up on injured reserve before the season, for example, it will cost the Packers an extra player at a 53-man roster price, a minimum cost of $840,000. Once you factor in in-season injuries, that $35.5 million doesn’t look like a treasure chest of cap space.
Green Bay would have a little more cap space to play around with this year if they didn’t structure the release of cornerback Jaire Alexander the way they did. Essentially, the Packers worked with Alexander to sign a one-year contract that pushed all of the dead cap in Alexander’s deal to fall on the 2025 cap, rather than split it over the next two seasons. So, instead of having Alexander count $7.5 million against the cap as a post-June 1st release in 2025, he now costs $17 million versus the Packers’ books.
Ultimately, whatever Green Bay doesn’t use cap-wise in 2025 will be rolled over into 2026 anyway, so this cap space issue doesn’t matter UNLESS the team wants to make a big move ahead of the 2025 season. If you wanted Watt in green and gold, though, I’m sure you have thoughts about the decision the Packers made with how they parted ways with Alexander.
