NFL reporter Aaron Wilson announced the details of Green Bay Packers linebacker Nick Niemann’s contract on Sunday night. According to Wilson, here are the teams for the special teams ace:
- One-year deal
- Total cost: $2.25 million with a max potential of $3 million
- Salary (game checks): $1.32 million – about $60,000 more than the minimum
- Signing bonus: $500,000
- Workout bonus: $200,000 (money paid for showing up to “voluntary” offseason practices)
- Per game active roster bonuses: $235,000 (roughly $14,000 per game)
- Playing time incentives: $750,000 (no further details yet)
- Pro Bowl incentive: $750,000
This is very similar to the type of deal we projected players like Niemann to receive in our Mock Offseason 2.0 (which also included the re-signing of running back Chris Brooks and center Sean Rhyan):
I could see Green Bay re-signing players like safety Zayne Anderson, tight end Josh Whyle and running back Chris Brooks
on low-level contracts, just for depth on the roster. When they make these types of moves, it’s usually something in the ballpark of a minimum deal with a $500,000 signing bonus. They will probably try to bring back one of Nick Niemann or Kristian Welch, two linebackers who primarily play special teams instead of defense, too. The Packers almost certainly will retain all of their exclusive right free agents, players who will make the league minimum and have no guarantees tied to their deals if they’re brought back.
Based on some back-of-the-napkin math, the Packers are in a spot where they have about $5 million (ballpark) in cap space after re-signing Niemann, Brooks and Rhyan, trading for linebacker Zaire Franklin and converting some scheduled 2026 money into new signing bonuses for left guard Aaron Banks and safety Xavier McKinney. Green Bay has the flexibility to create more cap space with more salary conversions or through cap casualties. The big question, that we’ll probably get an answer to in the coming days, is whether the Packers intend to hang onto center Elgton Jenkins and defensive end Rashan Gary, as they did with Jaire Alexander until the day before mandatory minicamp, in the hopes that a trade offer comes.
So far, they’re moving like a team that wants to keep that option on the table, as they’ve been creating cap space to get back to around $0, rather than clear big money (like they would with the releases of Gary and Jenkins) to make room for splash signings.
