Green Bay Packers Tough Decisions: Smith Bros.

The Green Bay Packers’ veteran outside linebackers, Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith, have a combined cap number of more than $47 million for 2022.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – A key offseason is here for the Green Bay Packers. The decisions that general manager Brian Gutekunst makes in the next month to navigate through a $50 million hole in the salary cap will determine whether the Packers will contend for a Super Bowl in 2022.

This series of stories focuses on the critical decisions that lie ahead. Part 4 focuses on The Smith Bros., outside linebackers Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith.

Za’Darius Smith: 2022 Status – Final season under contract.

Cap number is $27,661,250.

Preston Smith: 2022 Status – Final season under contract.

Cap number is $19,720,588.

Outlook

If the Packers were set to embark on a rebuild, they could take care of a lot of the dirty work by moving on from their veteran outside linebackers.

Dumping Za’Darius Smith, whose 2021 season was ruined by a back injury that required surgery, would save $15.28 million. Parting ways with Preston Smith, who had a strong bounce-back season after agreeing to an incentives-filled renegotiation, would save $12.47 million. Getting rid of both members of the Smith Bros, both of whom will turn 30 next season, would take care of more than half of the cap problems.

But the Packers aren’t ready to rebuild. As long as they can coax Aaron Rodgers back for another season – or series of seasons – they’ll keep tying a key to a kite and flying it in a thunderstorm in hopes that lightning strikes in the playoffs.

With cryptic quotes about the Packers’ captain choices and a season-long injury, it’s easy to forget just what a game-changer Za’Darius Smith was during his first two seasons with the Packers. In 2019 and 2020, he piled up a whopping 26 sacks. In 2019, he led the NFL in pressures. In 2020, he forced a career-high four fumbles. His ability to move up and down the line of scrimmage created opportunities for himself and his teammates.

If the Packers release him, they’d absorb $12.38 million in dead money on the cap. Being on the hook for so much money for a player suiting up elsewhere, Gutekunst might prefer restructuring Smith’s contract by turning base salary ($14.5 million) and per-game roster bonuses (totaling $500,000) into signing bonus and adding four void years to help with the accounting. That would create $11.3 of cap space for 2022, Nick Korte of OverTheCap.com confirmed. That money would hit as dead cap in 2023, when the league-wide cap is expected to soar and that kind of cash would be easier to swallow.

As an added bonus, with Smith entering his last season under contract, he’d have plenty of motivation to earn his next big payday.

The case for Preston Smith seems a lot easier given the way he played in 2021. While nine sacks are no reason to throw a parade, he finished ninth among edge rushers with a career-high 62 pressures, according to Pro Football Focus. That dwarfed his 2020 production of four sacks and 26 pressures.

“When the (2020) season was over, he sat down with me and we had a long talk, and he knew what he had to come out and do this year,” outside linebackers coach Mike Smith said late in the season. “That's the thing I love about Preston. He doesn't have an ego or nothing like that. He's not sensitive. I can call him in, tell him what I thought about practice and if it was good or it was bad, all that type stuff, and he takes what it is. That’s one thing I like about Preston.”

More than just a pass rusher, Smith is good against the run, a key leader and close with Rodgers. Teammates pointed to his halftime speech at halftime of the late-season game against Chicago as a key reason for the team’s resounding second-half performance.

An extension could cut his $19.7 million cap charge in half. More than that, it would ensure the defense has a winning tandem with Smith and Rashan Gary for at least a few more seasons and allow Gutekunst to use his draft capital elsewhere. Added together, locking up Preston Smith for the long haul might be the easiest decision of the offseason.

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