The Green Bay Packers claimed safety Johnathan Abram off of waivers from the Las Vegas Raiders on Wednesday. If he passes his physical and joins the Packers, Abram will not only join the 53-man roster but also take up a chunk of cap space in 2022.
The Packers claimed the player and the contract.
Per Ken Ingalls, a CPA who tracks the salary cap, Abram will count just over $1 million on the Packers’ cap this year.
The team will be paying what’s left of his base salary in 2022.
Abram was a first-round pick of the Raiders in 2019. The team declined his fifth-year option, meaning he’s in the last year of his rookie deal and will become a free agent after this season.
Overall, the Packers have roughly $5 million left in cap space after claiming Abram.
While $1 million on the cap isn’t necessarily a lot in the grand scheme, teams can carry over salary cap space, so the $1 million the Packers are spending on Abram this year won’t carry over to 2023 when the team likely enters a transition and needs more cap space.
Abram is getting a new start and a change of scenery in Green Bay, and he’ll reunite with coach Rich Bisaccia. Maybe the combination of those factors will get his career turned around and the Packers will have a bargain future starter. But Abram has struggled in every aspect of playing the safety position after four years in the NFL, so the Packers are going to pay $1 million for something like eight games of a player who isn’t going to make a big difference on the season and likely won’t be around past this season.
