Brian Gutekunst has some big decisions to make before the 2026 league year officially opens
With the franchise tag deadline, the NFL combine, and the legal tampering period set to come before March 11, the Packers still have a lot to do before they can make any additions to the team.
Good morning!
The NFL combine is a week away, and the start of the new league year looms less than a month from now, which means the Green Bay Packers have a lot to get done in the coming days and weeks as they ready another Super Bowl run.
But even though the deadlines fall at different points in the calendar, the potential options on the board are interconnected in crucial ways, and the Packers have to see the whole picture before making any single decision in one area or another.
In today’s newsletter, we dig into the ouroboros offseason cycle.
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Who are the veterans in danger of being cut?
Peter Bukowski: Here’s the first domino. But for the Packers to decide who is expendable, they have to know who is getable. And they don’t know who is getable until either
A.) A veteran gets cut before the league year opens
B.) A free agent is available
C.) A player can be drafted
But all those things are interconnected. And so are the resulting ripple effects of one move. Veterans could get cut before free agency. Free agency happens before a player can be drafted, but the combine (setting the pool of draftable players) happens before the free agents can be signed.
See how this gets complicated?
Let’s say the Packers want to move on from Rashan Gary. Well, it doesn’t save very much money now. They’re already likely losing Kingsley Enagbare to free agency, so they have major depth issues at a crucial position if they cut him. And they not only lack the financial resources to add a player as good as we’ve seen Gary be in his career, but they don’t have the draft picks necessary to draft one either.
What’s more, drafting another edge rusher when the team has red flag needs elsewhere would be creating a problem without solving one.
Everything has to be related.
Who can they replace Elgton Jenkins with if they decide to move on? What would the price of say Sean Rhyan be before he hits the open market to stay on and potentially compete with an interior offensive lineman draft pick?
What complicates this question further is that veteran cuts will start happening before the new league year opens, adding players to the pool that Green Bay may not have foreseen becoming available. That can change the calculation quickly.
And if Rhyan can’t be had cheaply, who are the players in the draft that could potentially be available? How good is this draft for centers or conversion projects? Well, in order to know who might be a Packers type, we have to have the NFL combine, which opens February 23rd.
For whatever you may think about athleticism testing numbers, Gutekunst and his cohorts at 1265 Lombardi Ave. care deeply, particularly early on in the draft. They can say whatever they want about the tape being the guide, and of course, the tape will be crucial, but the Packers’ history of drafting elite athletes at the position is all the evidence we need to know how important they view that as a piece of the evaluation.
Even once the Packers know the testing, they won’t know for sure if they’ll be able to get any of their preferred players, though if the class is deep at a particular position, they can make a calculated guess.
The Packers can get cap compliant by moving around some money with restuctures, converting roster bonuses and salary into signing bonuses that can be prorated on the cap using the NFL’s patented mob accounting practices.
Could the Packers be players in the franchise tag game?
PB: In a word: no. If the Minnesota Vikings couldn’t play the tag-and-trade game with Sam Darnold, the Packers can’t risk doing it with Willis, even if a team would likely be willing to part with considerable capital to sign Willis. Jason wrote last week about the potential Willis market, though, and the tag would be so much higher than anything Willis is likely to get on the market that it wouldn’t make sense for his agents to even seek a trade.
Just call the Packers’ bluff and make them pay him over $47 million guaranteed in 2026.
The Dallas Cowboys will reportedly tag George Pickens if they can’t reach a contract extension before the tag deadline. Jordan Love and Micah Parsons have each put out public recruiting pitches to Pickens, but if he gets tagged, only a trade could bring Pickens to Green Bay.
After trading Parsons to the Packers, it’s hard to imagine Jerry Jones sending another high-profile Cowboy to Titletown, even if Gutekunst had a first-round pick to offer, which he doesn’t.
Gutekunst used all of his ammunition. The team just needs their biggest weapon back on the field.
It's a lot easier to be an armchair GM than a real GM. I hadn't realized how inter-connected everything was.