David Bakhtiari‘s NFL path changed on New Year’s Eve 2020. Not only did the Packers see their Super Bowl LV hopes affected by an injury sustained in practice, they have been unable to rely on their All-Pro left tackle since.
Once again set to miss most of a season due to knee trouble, Bakhtiari confirmed he will not play again this year. But the 11th-year blocker indicated he does expect to play in 2024. Bakhtiari stopped short of confirming he would be a Packer again, per ESPN’s Rob Demovsky, as his persistent injury issues could prompt Green Bay to move on after this year.
The ACL tear Bakhtiari sustained nearly three years ago led to three surgeries between the December 2020 tear and the start of Packers training camp in 2022. He went through a fourth knee operation last week and has another scheduled for this year in Chicago, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tom Silverstein. A training camp 2024 return represents Bakhtiari’s goal.
Bakhtiari said his 2023 knee procedures are not connected to his ACL but address a femoral condyle cartilage issue. This trouble does stem from the 2020 injury, but after doctors hoped it would not become a problem for the All-Pro, a decision was made not to address this ancillary issue via another surgery at the time, per Demovsky. This lingering issue was enough to keep Bakhtiari off the field in Weeks 2 and 3, and after the Packers placed him on IR ahead of their Week 4 Lions matchup, news emerged indicating this problem would sideline him for the season’s remainder.
After missing the Packers’ two playoff games in 2020, Bakhtiari spent part of 2021 on Green Bay’s PUP list. The team activated the high-priced LT in mid-November that year but did not deploy him in a game until a meaningless Week 18 contest. The Packers used Bakhtiari on 27 plays in that season-ender in Detroit, despite the team having locked down home-field advantage. The ramp-up effort backfired. Bakhtiari did not play in Green Bay’s divisional-round game two weeks later. He was ready to go in time for Week 1 of the 2022 season, but knee trouble and an appendectomy led to six absences last year.
When on the field last season, Bakhtiari resumed his place as one of the game’s best O-linemen. ESPN’s pass block win rate metric ranked Bakhtiari second among tackles and tops among left-siders. But last month’s setback offered another reminder of how damaging that 2020 injury has been for the former fourth-round success story.
Bakhtiari, 32, said (via Demovsky) he and GM Brian Gutekunst have discussed his future. The Packers gave their top lineman a then-record-setting deal — four years, $92MM — during the 2020 season. That deal has not panned out, and if Bakhtiari is in the team’s plans for 2024 (the contract’s final season), he will need to almost definitely rework it. Due to past restructures, next season calls for a $40.6MM Bakhtiari cap number. No void years are present in this deal. It would cost the Packers more than $19MM in dead money to cut Bakhtiari, but that number could be spread across two years if the team uses the post-June 1 designation.
The Packers only have one big-ticket contract on their offense — Elgton Jenkins‘ four-year, $68MM deal — and the team will be rid of the Aaron Rodgers dead money by 2024. But Bakhtiari’s Packers future is in doubt after this latest bout of knee pain. How he responds from his latest round of surgeries will represent the next check-in regarding this long-running situation.