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Over the weekend, the Green Bay Packers officially re-signed cornerback Rasul Douglas to a new contract. The three-year deal, worth approximately $21 million, kept the team’s key players in the defensive secondary together for at least another season as the team tries to keep a championship window open for a few more years.
Although the rough numbers of the deal were reported over the weekend, Wednesday brought the news of the details of Douglas’ deal from ESPN’s Rob Demovsky. The structure of the contract will keep Douglas’ salary cap hit below $3.5 million for the upcoming 2022 season before roughly doubling in 2023, a year in which NFL teams expect to see a significant increase to the cap.
Assuming that there are no void years tacked onto the end of Douglas’ deal (none have been reported), this is a simple contract to break down for salary cap purposes. Doing so in such a manner looks like the following (all numbers in millions):
Rasul Douglas Contract
| Year | Base | Signing Bonus | SB Proration | RB | PGRB | WB | Cash | Cap Hit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Base | Signing Bonus | SB Proration | RB | PGRB | WB | Cash | Cap Hit |
| 2022 | $1.050 | $5.300 | $1.767 | $- | $0.450 | $0.200 | $7.000 | $3.334 |
| 2023 | $2.250 | $- | $1.767 | $2.000 | $0.450 | $0.200 | $4.900 | $6.667 |
| 2024 | $6.250 | $- | $1.767 | $2.000 | $0.450 | $0.200 | $8.900 | $10.667 |
Note that Douglas’ 2022 cap hit is slightly lower than it appears it should be; this is because for per-game roster bonuses, only the same number of games that a player participated in the previous year counts as likely to be earned incentives and therefore get charged against the cap for the offseason.
In all practicality, this looks to be a two-year, $12 million deal with a team option on the third season for $8.9 million. One should reasonably expect that the Packers will look to restructure the 2024 season on this contract, whether via a contract extension or cap-related release.
However, if Douglas provides an impact similar to what he brought to the Packers in 2021, he could be well worth paying another $9 million in 2024. His arrival in the wake of Jaire Alexander’s injury last fall helped solidify the Packers’ secondary, and his playmaking abilities delivered a game-winning interception against the then-unbeaten Arizona Cardinals (his previous team) and a pair of interception return touchdowns. Douglas will clearly be a major factor in the defense’s plans for the next two seasons at least, a period over which the Packers will hope to see him outplay his new deal.
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