According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, free agent OT David Bakhtiari is expected to be ready for the start of the 2024 season.
Rapoport adds Bakhtiari had a “positive follow-up exam” with Dr. Brian Cole who was the one to declare him on track for the start of the year.
Once one of the best tackles in football, complications from knee surgery have derailed Bakhtiari’s career. He’s started just 13 games in the past three seasons.
When he’s been on the field, he’s still been able to play at a high level, so it’s easy to see a team rolling the dice on Bakhtiari, perhaps later this summer.
Bakhtiari, 32, is a former fourth-round pick of the Packers back in 2013. He was in the final year of his five-year, $53.34 million contract that included $16 million guaranteed and set to make a base salary of $10 million for the 2020 season when he agreed to a four-year extension worth up to $105.5 million.
The deal included a $30 million signing bonus and another $30 million-plus available in March roster bonuses in the first few years of the deal. He worked his way back from a torn ACL he suffered late in the 2020 season.
He was to earn a base salary of $10.7 million in the final year of his deal in 2024 when the Packers released him.
In 2023, Bakhtiari appeared in just one game for the Packers before being shut down for the season due to more knee issues.
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