{"id":69344,"date":"2022-09-08T02:03:09","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T02:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/zadarius-smith-and-the-green-bay-packers-a-timeline\/"},"modified":"2022-09-08T02:03:09","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T02:03:09","slug":"zadarius-smith-and-the-green-bay-packers-a-timeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/zadarius-smith-and-the-green-bay-packers-a-timeline\/","title":{"rendered":"Za’Darius Smith and the Green Bay Packers: A Timeline"},"content":{"rendered":"
Quickly, the Green Bay Packers’ season opener against the Minnesota Vikings has become more than just a divisional game. It’s a meeting of scorned lovers: the Packers and former pass-rusher Za’Darius Smith, now a member of the Vikings.<\/p>\n
cap mechanics. A bedazzled pendant. A team captain vote. Many factors play into how Smith, a former All-Pro in Green Bay, suddenly developed into the team’s biggest enemy. It’s impossible to explain without taking you through the road that got us here, so let’s take a look at the timeline of Smith and the Packers’ relationship over the last year-and-a-half to see what soured their bond.<\/p>\n
In a since-deleted tweet, Smith tweeted, \u201cI want to be a Packer for life.\u201d This was at a time in which many assumed that Smith had played himself into a contract extension, as he was approaching the final two seasons of his four-year contract. Many of Smith’s social media posts from his time in Green Bay have since been removed.<\/p>\n
According to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<\/em><\/a>the expectation was that Smith and the Packers would \u201ccomplete an extension\u201d over \u201cthe next day or two\u201d that would free up enough cap space for Green Bay to sign running back Aaron Jones to a multi-year contract.<\/p>\n Smith’s contract is restructured, not extended. Instead of adding years and new money to his current deal, the Packers elected to move around the cap hits in Smith’s contract to free up the cap space to sign Jones. According to Field Yates of ESPN<\/a>Smith’s $5 million roster bonus and $9.76 million of his base salary were turned into a signing bonus that created $7.38 million in cap relief for the Packers without giving Smith an extra dime.<\/p>\n At that point, Smith’s 2022 cap hit was set to be $27.7 million in the final year of his four-year contract. With a cap hit that high, it was highly likely that the Packers were going to release him after the 2021 season, no matter how well he played that year.<\/p>\n According to a video from defensive lineman Kenny Clark’s Instagram via Fox6’s Lily Zhao, Smith reports to the Packers’ organized team activities, which were optional. Smith may have been mad about his contract situation at this point, but he was n’t letting it impact his attendance.<\/p>\n One day after reporting to the Packers’ OTAs, Smith changes representation to Samantha Sankovich and Dan Saffron of Steinberg Sports, who report the change themselves<\/a> on social media. This is where the ball started to get rolling on his discontent with how Green Bay chose to handle his cap hits and his lack of an extension.<\/p>\n Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported that Smith was \u201cless-than-happy\u201d in a sourced up post.<\/p>\n As one league source explained it to PFT, Smith is believed to be unhappy about the team exercising the automatic conversion option in his contract, converting a large chunk of 2021 salary to a guaranteed payment and, in turn, pushing his 2022 cap number north of $28 million. He knows that, come next year, the magnitude of the cap charge for keeping him around means he’ll likely be cut or traded.<\/p>\n Smith, per the source, didn’t realize the import of the automatic conversion language. Also, he’s believed to be not happy that the Packers didn’t pay out the 2021 guarantee ($14.76 million) in March. By letter of the agreement, the Packers will make the payments in weekly chunks during the season, resulting in Smith getting no net benefit from the move. Instead, the restructuring hurts him because it makes his cap number in 2022 too high for the team to carry.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n At this point, it’s important to remind the reader that players have no say in if teams convert their salary into a signing bonus or not. Because the players are getting paid the same amount of money within the same timeframe that they would have if their money was in game-by-game salary instead of a signing bonus, these accounting moves typically fall in the hands of just the team’s front office .. Smith never had to agree to a bloated 2022 cap hit, because the Packers had the mechanics to move around cap hits without his permission.<\/p>\n Smith starts training camp on the NFL’s non-football injury list for a back injury that general manager Brian Gutekunst calls \u201cshort term<\/a>\u201d On the same day, Smith’s new representation solidified a change in language that allowed him to see $5 million of the salary the Packers converted into a signing bonus on a more accelerated schedule than what they originally planned for, per Florio.<\/p>\n On August 12th, Smith worked outside with the rehab group for the first time since he was placed on the NFI list with his back injury. On the 16th, he put on his helmet for the first time in practice and was activated off of the NFI list. On the 22nd, head coach Matt LaFleur stated that the team is \u201cgoing to be smart with him\u201d and Gutekunst stated that Smith’s back \u201cflared up\u201d after his return to the field the week prior. On September 1st, Smith was pulled out of practice again.<\/p>\n Smith returned to practice on the Monday of the Packers’ season-opener against the New Orleans Saints, giving hope to him playing in Week 1.<\/p>\n Despite being named the sole defensive captain for the 2019 and 2020 seasons, Smith was not named one of the three (Clark, Adrian Amos and Jaire Alexander) defensive captains for the 2021 team. These captains were voted on by the Packers’ players, not the coaching staff.<\/p>\n Smith was pulled out of practice again on the Friday leading up to the team’s season opener. After practice, LaFleur claims that Smith is \u201cstill a captain\u201d of the team, despite not being named one by the Packers officially.<\/p>\n In somewhat of a surprise, Smith, who had practiced all of once in training camp, was activated for Week 1 and played against the Saints. Preston Smith and Rashan Gary got the starts at outside linebacker for the team, but Smith was on the field for 18 of the defense’s 62 plays overall, mostly on third down or subpackage situations. To put it simply, though, he did not look like himself and struggled to generate the type of pass-rush that made him a Pro Bowl talent the year before. The Packers lost 38-10 in Jacksonville, as Hurricane Ida temporarily displaced the Saints from playing in the Superdome.<\/p>\n On the Tuesday after the Packers’ opener, Smith posted on Instagram that he was going to have a diamond pendant of an NFL captain’s patch commissioned. This came less than a week after he wasn’t voted a defensive captain by his peers for the first time in his three years with the team.<\/p>\n If you’re wondering if Smith ever had the pendant made, the answer is yes! The border on the C and the stars on the pendant also apparently glow in the dark. Shoutout to Acme Packing Company’s own Jon Meerdink for tracking the answer down.<\/p>\n At this point, it seems like Smith, who had been posting on social media about his return throughout Week 1 despite missing practices, convinced the coaching staff that he was healthy enough to play against the Saints when he really wasn’t, based on his limited snap counts and limited play when on the field. LaFleur addressed this in his press conference on Thursday of Week 2 by stating, \u201cWe’re not going to play [Smith] as much as we’d like to until we know that he’s healthy enough to [string together practices.] Until he can practice on a daily basis, it’s hard to say that he’s 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n Early on in the presser, LaFleur was asked if Smith will practice, which led to the head coach letting the media know that Smith was ruled out for the day’s work. When asked if it was Smith’s back injury that placed him on the NFI list that kept him out of practice that Thursday, LaFleur said, \u201cIt has everything to do with the back.\u201d<\/p>\n The very next day, Smith was placed on the injured reserve with a designation to return. Smith’s injured reserve stint was originally reported as a short-term IR stint, which left the door open to him returning to the team as quickly as in three weeks. LaFleur would say later that Friday that Smith was \u201cshutting down for a while.\u201d<\/p>\nMarch 17th, 2021<\/h3>\n
May 24th, 2021<\/h3>\n
May 25th, 2021<\/h3>\n
July 24th, 2021<\/h3>\n
\n
Training Camp<\/h2>\n
July 27th, 2021<\/h3>\n
August 12th-September 1st, 2021<\/h3>\n
2021 Season<\/h2>\n
September 6th, 2021<\/h3>\n
September 9th, 2021<\/h3>\n
September 10th, 2021<\/h3>\n
September 12th, 2021<\/h3>\n
September 14th, 2021<\/h3>\n
September 16th, 2021<\/h3>\n
September 17th, 2021<\/h3>\n
Late September, 2021<\/h3>\n