Just now: Green Bay Packers Linebacker David Bakhtiari Announces His Plans to Continue Playing

February 26, 2024 Sports Gist Green bay packers, NFL 0

Green Bay Packers Linebacker David Bakhtiari Announces His Plans to Continue Playing

The Green Bay Packers and David Bakhtiari have had a tumultuous time together for the last three seasons.  An ACL tear in December 2020 completely derailed Bakhtiari’s career.  He has played one game in two of the last three seasons.

However, since 2013 Bakhtiari has been one of the pillars of the Packers’ offense.  He proved once again in Week One of the 2023 season that he can still perform at an extremely high level.  Now he is ready to let fans know what he thinks about his playing future.

Green Bay Packers LT David Bakhtiari Makes Announcement About His Playing Future

The Green Bay Packers have been David Bakhtiari’s only team since he was selected with the 109th pick in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL draft out of Colorado.

In Green Bay, Bakhtiari has built an impressive Hall-of-Fame resume, but work must be done to keep him in Green Bay. By doing nothing, they would incur a cap hit of $40.02 million for Bakhtiari’s final year. As the team needs to create cap space, that’s far too high.

By releasing or trading Bakhtiari, almost $21 million can be saved. However, if both sides want to run it back one more year, a restructure will be required.

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How the Packers’ new defensive coordinator is settling into his job

 As temporary homes go, Jeff Hafley could do a lot worse than Lodge Kohler.

Conveniently located adjacent to Titletown and across Ridge Road from the new Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator’s Lambeau Field office, Lodge Kohler has two restaurants (Taverne in the Sky and the Leaps & Bounds Café), the Waters Spa (where Hafley could get anything from a hydrotherapy massage to a “Green and Gold Pedicure” to a $42 haircut and $32 beard trim) and suites appointed with sepia-toned photographs from throughout the Packers’ rich history.

What Hafley’s swanky digs at the AAA four-diamond rated luxury hotel do not have, however, are Gina, his wife, and the couple’s two daughters, Hope and Leah.

And while the soon-to-be 45-year-old Hafley would much rather have them here than finishing up the school year back east — “It’s really hard,” Hafley admitted before flying out to Boston to spend the weekend with them — their absence has allowed Hafley to dive head-first into his new job over the past two weeks without the pull of the family dinner table or the girls’ school and extracurricular activities.

“You don’t have to be home because there’s no one to see,” Hafley said. “So, you just stay here at night and watch film.”

Truth be told, as much as he misses his family, Hafley has enjoyed all that film study, since his four-year run as Boston College’s head coach entailed far more off-the-field responsibilities than pure football — especially with the advent of the transfer portal and players’ name, image and likeness rights.

And so far, he’s liked what he’s seen from the players he’s inheriting — particularly from outside linebackers-turned-defensive ends Preston Smith, Rashan Gary and Lukas Van Ness, and linebacker Quay Walker — as he tries to determine how best to deploy them in his base 4-3 scheme.

Hafley has also spent extensive time meeting with coach Matt LaFleur, whose vision for the defense is more about a style of play than a particular system.

“I want us to be fast and physical and attack the ball,” LaFleur explained. “We will be a little more vision-based on the back end, and I think that’s a great opportunity to be able to go out there and generate takeaways.”

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