Donald Driver Reportedly Cuts Pay In Half, But Bonus Due Next Week

Andrew Brandt of ESPN and the National Football Post has the numbers on Donald Driver's new contract, and the information he provides seems to support Driver's assertion that he will be on the final roster. Here's the contract info from Brandt on twitter.

New contract for Packer favorite @Donald_Driver80 is one-year deal for $2.5 million with a $500,000 roster bonus due next week.

— Andrew Brandt (@adbrandt) May 31, 2012

Obviously, the team did not work out a new contract with Driver so that they can cut him next week. I'm just going to assume that, even though this is a cutthroat business, no one is that low. The Packers are a healthy team financially, but they're also not in a position to write someone a check for $500,000, then cut them when they're healthy and able to play.

Driver was scheduled to make $5.5 million this year with a roster bonus due the first week of training camp before he negotiated this new deal. The cap space savings should allow Ted Thompson to restructure and extend some of the team's younger stars, perhaps using that extra $3 million in space to frontload the contracts a bit more and provide greater cap flexibility in future years.