The Green Bay Packers have made their first significant salary cap adjustment for the 2026 season, with news of a contract restructure coming down on Thursday morning. According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, the Packers are restructuring Xavier McKinney’s deal, converting a significant portion of his 2026 compensation into a signing bonus to spread that money out over multiple years for cap calculation purposes.
Fowler notes that most of McKinney’s base salary, plus an $8.5 million roster bonus he was
due to receive next week, will all be converted to a signing bonus. This means that the team will push a minimum of $5.77 million out of this year’s cap number with the restructure, with potentially more going out into future years if they are adding void years onto McKinney’s deal.
McKinney’s deal was set to pay him a base salary of $4.25 million this year along with that $8.5 million roster bonus due next Friday. The maximum restructure would take his base salary down to $1.215 million, the league minimum for players with six years of NFL experience, moving a total of $11.535 million into a check that he can cash today.
That large number can then be spread over anywhere from two to five years, depending on whether and how many void years the Packers choose to implement. If they elect not to add any void years, it will be split evenly across 2026 and 2027, keeping $5,767,500 of that cap charge on the books for 2026 and moving the same number out to 2027.
The maximum savings for 2026 would come if the team adds three void years onto the deal, which appears to be the most likely scenario. Doing so would amortize the $11.535 million bonus over five years instead, shifting $9.228 million out of this year’s cap and into future years. That number would then be spread out as $2.307 million each over the next five seasons, which would drop McKinney’s cap number for 2026 almost in half, down to about $9.86 million.
The major impact of the void year structure would come if the team does not elect to give McKinney a new contract extension before next year and he becomes a free agent after the 2027 season. If that happens and the contract does void, the Packers will absorb just under $7 million in dead money on the 2028 cap. However, extending McKinney before next year — still going into his age-29 season — would leave the money spread out over each individual year.
Given that McKinney will be scheduled to make a base salary of $14.65 million in 2027 with a likely cap hit of $22.7 million, he will surely be a priority extension for the Packers next offseason. He remains one of the better safeties in the NFL, earning second-team All-Pro in 2025 after his first-team honor in 2024, and his game should continue to age well as he approaches the age of 30. The Packers rarely give out third contracts, but given his position, his age, and his high level of play, he will almost certainly be one of the rare players who does receive one from this team, which should leave the Packers in a good spot at the safety position for some time to come.
