It’s clear that the Green Bay Packers must make a few critical moves to enter the echelon of elite NFL teams in 2025.
Good, not great, is the lasting impression of the 2024 squad after their Wild Card exit.
It’s not an awful place to be, all things considered. The Packers have some cornerstone roster pieces to build upon and, for the first time since the late Aaron Rodgers era, have the cap space to add even more.
While there are a few players the Packers would enjoy having back, they don’t have many “must-re-signs” among their pending exits. Therefore, they can take advantage of the growing cap by bringing in a few mercenaries.
Of course, the reason they don’t have many priority free agents in their own building is because of the lack of impact from the 2021 draft class. Brian Gutekunst got some quality years from a few players but had no signature picks.
That’s not ideal, but the silver lining is that Green Bay can afford a trip to the store and know exactly what they need. Just like the 2015 class‘ dearth of re-signs led to an exhilarating free-agent spending spree in 2019, 2021’s lack of stars could have the way for another roster-elevating group.
The Packers are a premiere draft-and-develop team and would prefer to stay in-house for their roster needs. That isn’t new information. For all of the discourse that Ted Thompson hated spending money on free agency, he was never afraid to sign his own free agents to big-money deals.
Unfortunately, he found no long-term investments in his eight-man 2015 draft class. The group includes Damarious Randall, Quinten Rollins, Ty Montgomery, Jake Ryan, Brett Hundley, Aaron Ripkowski, Christian Ringo, and Kennard Backman.
That class was meant to solve Green Bay’s cornerback woes and did anything but, forcing the Packers to keep drafting cornerbacks. Randall had big-play moments but was a contentious player, and Green Bay traded him to the Cleveland Browns for quarterback DeShone Kizer. Rollins had a pick-six as a rookie but never panned out. He has been out of the league since 2019.
The middle and late-rounders fared no better.
Ron Wolf said you’d like to get at least three quality starters from every draft class. Or maybe my memory is lying to me. Either way, the Packers didn’t get one, let alone three building blocks from the class.
Green Bay didn’t re-sign a single player, and there wasn’t a single Pro Bowler or quality starter among the bunch. Montgomery and Hundley had pretty long careers after their time in Wisconsin but never as consistent starters.
Not getting good use out of cheap rookie deals is never good, and the class’ inefficiency affected the roster-building process for a few seasons. It’s never good to have a room full of “busts” (except the Hall of Fame, I guess).
But Brian Gutekunst turned that year’s chicken crap into chicken salad in 2019, his second year as general manager.
Without the need to devote money to their own departing free agents, Gutekunst went on a rare shopping spree.
To fill the team’s desperate pass-rush needs (sound familiar?), he signed Preston Smith and Za’Darius Smith before drafting Rashan Gary in the first round. He signed Adrian Amos from the Chicago Bears to fill a massive hole at safety, and he brought in versatile Billy Turner to protect Aaron Rodgers.
Even with Za’Darius’ full heel-turn after a few years, Green Bay got phenomenal value from all four of their investments, a testament to the team’s pro scouting group. The outside hires brought the Packers as close to the Super Bowl as they had been since 2014. Unfortunately, they didn’t make the championship game, let alone win it. Still, it showed that, despite NFL folklore, the Packers care about free agency.
The new league year starts in March, so we’ll have a better idea of how the front office values the 2021 class at that time.
The 2021 class isn’t quite as bleak as 2015’s, and a few players could pan out. The Packers are high on center Josh Myers. Eric Stokes could be back on a cheap deal to whether the storm as the Packers figure out their cornerback room. T.J. Slaton is a valuable run-stopper. Isaiah McDuffie played significant linebacker snaps for Jeff Hafley. There’s a non-zero chance that someone is back for a second stint.
But it’s hard to see anyone other than potentially Myers getting a big-money deal, and no one in that group is a must-have. Even Myers might already have a replacement on the roster. It’s looking like their best option is to spend that money outside the building.
That isn’t a terrible thing for a team that needs to raise their roster’s floor and ceiling. The Packers aren’t losing many starting snaps to free agency and can fill in their gaps with some high-quality free agents. The pass rush needs an upgrade, and while this is a good draft class to restock, it’s also a decent free agency and disgruntled trade-target group. Green Bay might be able to address their biggest need in a way they couldn’t if their money was tied into exiting players.
Ideally, you would hit on every draft player, and they would also be willing to take low deals to stay with your franchise (like I force them to in Madden). It’s not a good process to get bad value from cheap rookie contracts, no matter how you slice it. But that past suffering could benefit the Packers in 2025 by giving them more opportunities to invest in the free-agent market.
The 2015 class led to the fantastic 2019 free-agency class. Could history repeat itself this year?