Packers waive injured wide receiver on Wednesday
With Grant DuBose showing out, the Green Bay Packers receiver room is starting look more and more filled out. Which meant the Packers felt comfortable with waiving wide receiver Jeff Cotton on Wednesday. Per KPRC2's Aaron Wilson, the team reached an injury settlement, which allowed the two parties to go their separate ways. Cotton was […]
With Grant DuBose showing out, the Green Bay Packers receiver room is starting look more and more filled out.
Which meant the Packers felt comfortable with waiving wide receiver Jeff Cotton on Wednesday. Per KPRC2's Aaron Wilson, the team reached an injury settlement, which allowed the two parties to go their separate ways.
Cotton was previously placed on the PUP list with an undisclosed injury, but the Packers put him on IR a couple of days later. Now, Cotton will be looking for a new team, but at least he has some cash to get him by in the meantime.
This is how injury settlements work in the NFL: When a player/team agrees on a settlement, they price out the number of games the player would have missed while on IR. So, if both parties agree a player would've missed eight games, the franchise will cut him a check for 8/17ths of the player's base salary for that season.
It's unknown what the agreement holds, but per Spotrac, Cotton was slated to make $450k in 2023. Using the above hypothetical, Cotton walked away with $211,764.71 in his pocket, which is obviously not a terrible chunk of change, at all.
The most unfortunate aspect is the fact that if Cotton stayed on IR for at least the first six games of the season, then he would've gotten his first-ever accrued NFL season, which is big when it comes to free agency status and future salaries. Players with four or more accrued seasons are labeled as "vested veterans". They have the right to unrestricted free agency, whereas others are either exclusive rights free agents or restricted free agents. Vested veterans also don't have to pass through waivers if they're cut ahead of the regular season trade deadline – they become UFAs and are allowed to negotiate with any team they want.
The Packers receiver room now consists of Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed, Samori Toure, Dontayvion Wicks, DuBose, Malik Heath, Bo Melton, Cody Chrest, Deuce Watts, Jadakis Bonds, and Dre Miller.
Featured image via Tork Mason-USA TODAY Sports
