Rashan Gary false starts on his Packers departure, but a split is inevitable

One of the Packers highest-paid defensive players posted a premature goodbye to Packers nation, but the end is nye for the former first-round pick.

We planned to put the Friday newsletter out late, anticipating a decision on Elgton Jenkins and/or Rashan Gary. We nailed it. A little before noon Central time, Rashan Gary posted a heartfelt goodbye to the Green Bay Packers on Instagram. Newsbreakers everywhere ran with it. The Packers were moving on.

But within mere minutes, a universal walkback from the Packers and national reporters. Not only was Gary not told he was being cut or traded, but Green Bay had also not done either of those things to him. At least not yet.

Then, more reporting came. Breathless and incurious: he’d been hacked. Of course, had he been hacked, he likely wouldn’t have been able to so quickly delete the post that created the news cycle in the first place.

Some, this author included, started spinning yarns. Was he being traded to a place he didn’t want to go, and therefore pressuring the Packers to release him so he could instead pick his preferred destination? Or, was the Hanlon’s Razor version more plausible? Gary had known for days, maybe even weeks, that his days were numbered, and his agent got word from Green Bay that they were working on a deal for him.

He, or someone on his team, sent a post that was not quite ready because the deal was still being negotiated.

But the mere fact he had a graphic prepared tells us everything we need to know: Gary is headed out of Green Bay one way or another.