Spotrac - Watson

All in all, it's not terrible. To my reading, it's really a two-year contract followed by a likely renegotiation depending on how things go.

Cap hit is ~$10.5m in 2026, and ~$11.5m in 2027.

There is a $13m roster bonus due March 1, 2028; the cap hit jumps to ~$24m that year.

So IF Watson has two more injury-plagued years, the team could cut him before paying that bonus. The problem is that if they do so, all the signing bonus accelerates and the "dead cap" would be over $21 mil. Probably too much to consider.

HOWEVER, IF they were to cut him before paying the bonus, AND designate it as a "Post June 1" cut, the numbers would look like this:

2028 Dead Cap: $7,413,415
2029 Dead Cap: $13,613,415
2028 Savings: $17,125,000

That's probably do-able if they needed to.

If things go well, there is also the likelihood that the $13m roster bonus gets converted to signing bonus (I think that's the change teams can make w/o even notifying the player), spreading that cap hit over the remaining years of the contract.

IF they do nothing (i.e., he plays really well so they just keep him, pay the bonus, etc.), the cap hit jumps from ~$11.5m in 2027 to $24.5m in 2028, and a whopping $29.1m in 2029. But at that point, if he's playing well enough that they would even consider keeping him within that salary range, then I suspect they'd be looking for another extension somewhere around there.

All things considered, I'd say the Packers have covered themselves about as well as could be expected in case the injuries continue; the tradeoff for that is that they only have two 'cheap' years and if he plays REALLY well, he'll probably price his way off the team.

Well done.