Monday Cheese Curds: Trade up for Trey Smack carries financial cost

GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA - AUGUST 30: Trey Smack #29 of the Florida Gators looks on during the second half of a game against the Long Island Sharks at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on August 30, 2025 in Gainesville, Florida. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images) | Getty Images

For better or worse, the Green Bay Packers’ decision to trade a pair of seventh-round draft picks had some knock-on effects that will affect the team’s salary cap sheet in 2026. A few weeks ago, towards the end of the 2026 NFL Draft, General manager Brian Gutekunst sent both of his 7th-round selections to Seattle for the final pick in the 6th round. With that pick, the Packers selected Florida kicker Trey Smack, clearly paving the way for a change at the position.

Smack’s arrival helped push the Packers to release Brandon McManus on Friday, and the team made him a post-June 1 cut to spread his dead money out over the next two seasons. However, as Bill Huber over at SI.com noted, McManus already got a $1 million check from the Packers this offseason — he had that amount in a roster bonus that paid out during the first week of the league year back in March.

Now the team is out that cash and cap space, all for what? Some sense of security by keeping him on the roster?

Meanwhile, the move for Smack also had another impact — if the Packers had a couple of 7th-round picks, they almost certainly would have drafted a couple of players from the list of those who ended up signing with the team as undrafted free agents. But because they didn’t draft them, it appears that they got into a bit of a bidding war for signing some of these players as UDFAs. As you’ll see, the Packers had to guarantee significant base salary money to four different signees — almost $1 million in total for just those four players — and that is something that the team has been very hesitant to do in the past.