What the Packers’ salary cap situation could look like in 2026

Most of this article was written before the Green Bay Packers made a bunch of moves at the start of Week 18, but they shouldn’t materially change my objective of this article: to give you a picture of what the Packers’ 2026 offseason will probably look like from a cap situation.

There’s a lot of bad information out there about the Packers’ cap situation, in part because the information is only partial. So I want to do a fairly deep dive into what Green Bay’s actual outlook is going into next year.

To set the table, here are the members of the 53-man roster (or injury lists) who are under contract for 2026:

53-Man Roster/Injury List Players Under Contract

• QB: Jordan Love
• RB: Josh Jacobs and MarShawn Lloyd
• WR: Christian Watson, Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, Matthew Golden and Savion Williams
• TE: Tucker Kraft and Luke Musgrave
• OL: Jordan Morgan, Aaron Banks, Elgton Jenkins, Anthony Belton, Zach Tom, Travis Glover, Jacob Monk and John Williams
• DE: Micah Parsons, Rashan Gary, Lukas Van Ness, Barryn Sorrell and Collin Oliver
• DT: Devonte Wyatt, Colby Wooden, Karl Brooks, Warren Brinson, Jordon Riley and Nazir Stackhouse
• LB: Edgerrin Cooper, Isaiah McDuffie and Ty’Ron Hopper
• CB: Keisean Nixon, Carrington Valentine and Nate Hobbs
• S: Xavier McKinney, Evan Williams, Javon Bullard and Kitan Oladapo
• K: Brandon McManus
• P: Daniel Whelan
• LS: Matt Orzech

The majority of the Packers’ cap space will be spent on these players. With that being said, Green Bay likely ends up moving off both offensive lineman Elgton Jenkins and defensive end Rashan Gary, based on their price tags and their contributions to the team this season. We’ll get into that later.

First, I want to discuss some factors that aren’t being accounted for on cap tables on sites like Spotrac, for example.

Exclusive Rights Free Agents

ERFAs are players who have less than three accrued seasons in the NFL. Essentially, this is a way for the league to allow teams to retain former practice squad players at a cheap cost. These players almost always have their tenders picked up, and the tenders come at a cost of about $1 million.

• OL: Donovan Jennings
• CB: Bo Melton and Kamal Hadden

Assume that Jennings, Melton and Hadden will all be back in Green Bay next year. This is very important to keep in mind because the top 51 cap hits on the roster are how offseason cap space is calculated. Since the Packers have fewer than 51 players under contract, there’s this perception that Green Bay has more cap space than they actually have going into 2026, because of the false vacancies on its offseason 90-man roster. Those spots will eventually be filled almost immediately when the season ends, as the team will sign reserve/futures players (basically their practice squadders to minimum deals.)

So, just because the Packers hypothetically have $20 million in cap space with around 40...