The Green Bay Packers don't necessarily have a firm timeline to decide what the franchise will do with left tackle David Bakhtiari. But general manager Brian Gutekunst doesn't want to let that linger for much longer.

On Tuesday, during his media availability at the Combine, the Packers executive said the new league year start, on March 13, is the team's ideal deadline to make a decision.

"I like to have a decision before that," Gutekunst said, mentioning that he hasn't made a decision yet because he doesn't like to make moves before he has to.

Contract details

Bakhtiari is under contract for 2024. He's slated to make $21.4 million, but his cap hit is $39.994 million because the Packers have restructured his deal three times since they signed an extension in 2020.

However, Bakhtiari has never agreed to add void years to his contract, so the Packers can't unilaterally lower his cap hit now. The left tackle would have to agree to a paycut or to add void years in any case.

Without Bakhtiari's acceptance, the Packers alternatives would be keeping him under the current price tag, trading him, or releasing him.

Either a trade or a release would leave behind $19.065 million in dead money, opening $21.4 million in cap space. However, a release would open the door for an injury grievance from the player, which could create additional cap impact for Green Bay.

Injury situation

Since suffering an ACL injury in 2020, David Bakhtiari has played only 13 games for the Packers — 11 of them in 2022. Last year, he played only in week 1, and then missed the rest of the season because of a new surgery, trying to solve the issue in his knee for good.

It's externally unclear how his injury situation is right now, and that's a big component of the Packers' decision.

Timing

The timeline of the decision is interesting. Theoretically, the Packers are already under the cap for 2024, so there's no need to make a decision on Bakhtiari before the new league year starts.

They could carry him on the roster through training camp, because his base salary only gets guaranteed in week 1.

But the idea of making a final decision before that has two potential motivations. One, it forces Bakhtiari to accept or not a paycut right now. The second scenario, which can or not be related to the first one, is to create cap space for the Packers before free agency, indicating that Green Bay is willing to add external pieces.

Five potential scenarios for the Packers and David Bakhtiari

Left tackle has been in Green Bay since 2013