Lineman David Bakhtiari's knee injury has been financial catastrophe for Green Bay Packers
GREEN BAY — Since David Bakhtiari signed his contract extension in mid-November 2020, the Green Bay Packers have paid him about $54 million in cash.
He’s played but 6½ games in that time.
To state the obvious, Bakhtiari’s knee injury on New Year’s Eve 2020 has been a disaster for the Packers, financially as well as on the field. An albatross for a salary-cap strapped team. Good luck finding another club in NFL history that spent more and got less than the Packers because of Bakhtiari’s ACL tear and subsequent complications.
As we hit Week 2 of the NFL schedule, about 20 months since his knee gave way in practice, Bakhtiari still isn’t ready to play after undergoing a third knee procedure last offseason. At this point, the Packers will have done well if sometime this season he’s healthy enough to start at left tackle and finish out the year. Then, barring surprising developments, they can thank him for his service and get out from his onerous contract next spring.
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Is a better outcome possible? Maybe. Bakhtiari and the Packers continue to express optimism about his return. But that's what they've been saying all along, so there's no taking them at their word.
Based on Bakhtiari’s current status and outlook, it's tough not to be skeptical. He sat out one day of practice last week and at least one day this week, with no indication he’ll suit up Sunday against the Chicago Bears. Coach Matt LaFleur on Thursday said that practice routine is the new normal and will continue even when Bakhtiari returns to game action, whenever that is. But let's face it, that’s the schedule of a player managing a chronic condition.
Does it mean Bakhtiari’s career is about over? No. But it’s reason to suspect he won’t be close to the All-Pro player he was before getting hurt, and it certainly bodes poorly for his longevity. The guess here is Bakhtiari and the Packers will do everything they can to get him back on the field in their quest for a Super Bowl this season, which may or may not work. Then the team will release him in February or March.
There’s not much else general manager Brian Gutekunst can do for now. He and the Packers are hostage to Bakhtiari’s contract, which when signed made the left tackle the highest-paid offensive lineman in the game, both in new money average ($23 million per year) and overall average ($21.5 million per year). That Bakhtiari still ranks No. 2 on both lists almost two years later suggests he and his agent negotiated a world-class deal.
Bakhtiari had a lot going for him in those talks. He’d been first-team All-Pro once and was nearing the end of a season in which he’d be voted first team again. Plus, he’d twice been second-team All-Pro. He also had the full backing of quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was regularly proclaiming his friend was on track to becoming a Pro Football Hall of Famer.
“I thought he was the best tackle in the league for a couple years there,” a scout for another NFL team said this week.
Regardless, cutting Bakhtiari now does the Packers no good, because all they’d wipe from their salary cap this year is the remainder of his $1.1 million base salary. They’ve already paid him about $13 million this season, mostly in a restructure bonus. Might as well have him take his best shot for the season and see what happens. You never know.
If they cut him in the spring, they’ll have to eat about $23 million in dead cap space. That’s the cost of prorating his $30 million signing bonus and a couple of contract restructures to boot. But because they’d be wiping his 2023 pay off the books, too, the Packers would actually gain about $5.9 million of cap space, according to Over The Cap. So that would be as good a time as any to move on unless Bakhtiari's comeback takes a stunning turn.
Either way, Bakhtiari is the ultimate cautionary tale of paying top dollar to a player nearing 30 and on his third NFL contract. He was 29 when he signed the deal.
Seeing how this played out makes it hard not to wonder if the Packers caught a break that Davante Adams demanded a trade last offseason. They lost a great receiver, no question, but Adams turns 30 later this year, and the Packers got a good return (cash and cap saved, two high draft picks) and pushed the injury risk of an older player’s high-end deal onto another team.
In the meantime, Bakhtiari still isn’t quite healthy enough to play in a game despite being months removed from the third procedure on his knee. I’ve been covering this team since 1993 and can’t remember a player who’s had this many complications coming back from a knee injury, and that includes Robert Brooks, who in 1996 sustained an all-time knee catastrophe: torn ACL, patellar tendon and MCL, plus a broken a bone in his leg.
In an interview with Cheesehead TV last January, Bakhtiari revealed details of his injury, which up to that point had required two surgeries: the initial ACL reconstruction and cartilage removal, and then an in-season procedure on further cartilage damage and scar tissue. The gist was that along with the ACL, Bakhtiari tore cartilage in the initial injury, then sometime during his comeback tore more. That’s why the second procedure.
Bakhtiari said all he needed was extended rest to calm his knee from the trauma and bruising of two injuries and surgeries. But in fact he eventually had another procedure before the offseason program began last April, a surgery the Packers acknowledged at the start of camp. Months later, he’s still not quite ready to go.
It’s a sad tale for player and team. Missing Bakhtiari in the playoffs in ’20 and ’21 certainly did the Packers harm. There’s no knowing if they would have beaten the Buccaneers for the NFC title two seasons ago or the 49ers in the divisional round last year with him, but there’s a reason good left tackles get big bucks. It makes a quarterback’s life easier.
By this season, though, the Packers should have had no delusions. They took the financial risk and paid a steep price. But they’ve known for months Bakhtiari’s future is shaky. Gutekunst had to have started planning for life without his left tackle last spring, regardless of the GM’s professions of faith in his recovery.
There’s a lot of football to play this season, and Bakhtiari will get every chance to give the Packers whatever he has left in 2022. You never know how it might go, and what surprises might be in store.
But odds are his time in Green Bay will end after this season because of an injury that’s been a financial catastrophe for this team.