Sam Shields is costing the Green Bay Packers a ton of money with his cap hit every season.
Shields will count $12,000,000 against the cap in 2016 and will count $12,125,000 in 2017. He is slated to be an unrestricted free agent in 2018 but until then the Packers will have to figure out what to do with one of the best, but most injury prone cornerbacks. Shields has been solid over the last 2 seasons with 5 interceptions and 79 tackles.
But is that enough production to warrant a $12 million plus cap hit?
Shields has also never played 16 games in a season so his durability has to come into question. The Packers will only have a little over $22 million in cap space and it is likely that they will need to make some more room to extend B.J. Raji, Casey Hayward, James Jones, Nick Perry, and Mason Crosby.
The Packers will need to revisit their offensive strategy and the amount of weapons they have on both sides of the ball as the Packers need help on both offense and defense. Either restructuring Shields contract or releasing him would allow the Packers more flexibility to add some depth to their roster.
