The Green Bay Packers have some work to do in order to get under the projected salary cap for 2026 before the start of the new league year on March 11th. The team is right around the final cap number for the coming season as it stands presently, and they will need to free up a decent amount of space for their draft class, some extensions or re-signings, and any additions they plan to make in free agency.
The most logical way to free up salary cap space is with the release of a pair of players who have massive cap hits for the coming season but also have failed to live up to them. Yes, in all likelihood, Elgton Jenkins and Rashan Gary will hit the street in the next two weeks looking for opportunities elsewhere.
Jenkins is the biggest value cut. His current contract, which has one year remaining, would have a cap hit of about $24.3 million, according to Overthecap.com, but releasing him will leave the Packers with only $4.8 million in dead money — a savings of about $19.5 million. Jenkins has largely been healthy the last few years leading up to the 2025 season, but with him being 31 years old, coming off a broken leg, and moving from guard to center anyway before last season, that’s a massive and unreasonable cap hit for a player in his situation.
Then there’s Gary, who is still on the right side of 30 (he just turned 28 in December). However, Gary still has never managed to hit double digits in sacks and he was shut out for the entire second half of the 2025 season. That’s right, Gary’s last sack came in week 7, when he sacked Aaron Rodgers twice. Gary’s cap number comes in at just over $28 million for the coming season, with the cap savings from releasing him being worth about $11 million on the Packers’ books.
It’s never a fun time when a team cuts a veteran player for financial reasons. Perhaps Gary and the Packers could work out some sort of pay cut or arrangement to keep him in Green Bay, though that currently seems unlikely. But the Packers could actually end up with some appealing options coming free from other teams during cap casualty season as well. Let’s take a look at that and much more as we get the first Curds of NFL Combine week underway.