The Packers and Film

On August 28, the Green Bay Packers made a big move, trading Kenny Clark and two first round picks to the Dallas Cowboys in exchange for Micah Parsons. One day after the trade, the Packers secured Micah Parsons, signing him to a 4 year, $186 million contract, which made Parsons the highest paid non quarterback in the NFL. It is a big contract, but with the way the contract is structured, it will not have a big impact on the Green Bay Packer’s cap space for the first two seasons.

For every NFL team, there is a salary cap. Each team gets the same amount of money, and every NFL is not allowed to go over the cap. For 2025, each NFL team has a $279.2 million salary cap. Each team has to use that amount of money to construct the roster. With Micah Parsons contract, it would seem his contract would eat up a large chunk of the salary cap for the Packers, but with the construction of the contract, the Packers have managed to make sure it will not be a problem for the first two years. That is because the Packers have structured the contract so that they do not pay the brunt of the contract for Micah Parsons until the last two years of the contract. For his first year as a Packer, Micah Parsons only has a base salary of $1.17 million according to Spotrac, and his cap hit for the Packers will only be 3.57%. That is not even in the top 5 cap hits for the Packers in 2025, with Jordan Love having a cap hit of 10.63%, Rashan Gary having a cap hit of 9.23%, Xavier McKinney having a cap hit of 6.39%, Elgton Jenkins having a cap hit of 6.30%, and Josh Jacobs having a cap hit of 4.06%. Here is what Micah Parsons cap hit looks like on the Green Bay Packers total cap.

This shows that, even with the massive contract, Parsons contract still leaves the Packers with 96.4% of their cap to allocate to the other players on the roster, as well as giving the team time to make the necessary preparations to prepare for the contract to have a massive hit on the cap in the coming years, as it rises from 3.57% in 2025 to 11.38% in 2028, and a possible 18.05% in 2029. The way the Packers structured the contract gives the team time to focus on winning for now, allows them to restructure deals, and gives them the wiggle room and ability to bring in additional players now while still having money for the future.