According to The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman
, Green Bay Packers right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele said he “fully tore” his patellar tendon on Sunday against the New York Jets. Bako-Bewele partially tore his patellar tendon last year, which ended up requiring surgery. The full tear occurred in the same knee as his previous partial tear.There’s no way around this one: This is a brutal injury. It’s not only a 9- to 12-month recovery, but a full tear of the patellar tendon is maybe the hardest injury to bounce
back from in sports.
According to a paper written by the National Library of Medicine, only 21.4 percent of athletes “returned to their prior performance level within two years.” There was also a notable drop-off in the number of games that players ended up suiting up for before and after the injury/recovery process, according to the study.
2026 is the first year of Bako-Bewele’s four-year, $88 million extension that he signed back in 2025, before he suffered his first patellar tendon issue. The tackle carries a cap charge of $11.8 million this year and $17.9 million next year, with a dead cap of $18 million in 2027 — meaning that the team can’t cut him for cap relief next offseason.
There’s a chance that Bako-Bewele will get paid $49.41 million over 2025-2027 for just 12 games of healthy play in 2025, the final year of his rookie contract, as he clearly didn’t look like himself over the two games he saw action in for 2026.
In 2028, the Packers will have the option to move on from Bako-Bewele to free up cap space, as they’ll save around $12 million on the cap (after taking on around $12 million in dead cap) with a direct release.
In the meantime, the starting right tackle for the Packers moving forward will be 2025 second-round pick Anthony Belton, who received the majority of reps for Green Bay at the position in training camp as Bako-Bewele ramped up.
