[Bette]

When the Green Bay Packers recently signed Craig Nall as their No. 3 quarterback, they netted another $1.5 million in salary-cap room in 2008 with an increasingly common contractual maneuver.

The move will give the Packers about $25 million in spending room under the projected $116 million cap in 2008 when the league year starts in early March.

It's the third time this year they've deployed this bookkeeping device, which uses up excess cap space at the end of the year by pushing it into the following season's cap.

According to a source with access to NFL salary information, Packers Vice President Andrew Brandt put a provision in Nall's contract that calls for him to make a $1.5 million incentive bonus if Nall blocks six punts and plays on 65 percent of the team's special-teams plays this year. He obviously can't reach that. However, salary-cap rules mandate that because the incentive was added to a contract during the season, it counts against this year's cap immediately, then when he doesn't reach it, the Packers will get a cap credit of $1.5 million next year.

In the last couple of years, the Packers have become one of the NFL's cap-healthy teams by using such tactics, as well as their pay-as-you-go philosophy of front-loading contracts rather than paying big signing bonuses that are prorated over the length of a deal.

http://www.packersnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071222/PKR01/712220372/1989