Green Bay Reporter

The Green Bay Packers restructured David Bakhtiari's deal to free up more room in their salary cap problem.

They did this by taking over $11 million of the left tackle's compensation and turning it into a bonus instead, Field Yates, an NFL Insider with ESPN, tweeted Feb. 26.

The restructured deal is applicable for the 2022-23 salary cap problem. The deal takes $11.58 million of Bakhtiari's salary for 2022 and turns it into a signing bonus that will be spread out over the rest of his contract instead of maxing out the 2022 salary cap, NBC Sports reported. 

Restructuring Bakhtiari’s deal frees up approximately $9.26 million in salary cap space for the Packers, who must figure out how to get the team under the cap of $208.2 million by March 16. 

Salary caps were established by the NFL in 1994 as a way to level the playing field so that big-market teams that make more money through television deals and such can't just lure all the best players to their team by offering bigger paychecks.