With the first wave of free agency in the rearview mirror, the
Packers still haven’t crossed off their top offseason priority: resolve the
Aaron Rodgers situation.
Negotiations between Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst and
Jets general manager Joe Douglas remain ongoing as they prepare to see each other at the
NFL’s annual league meeting in Phoenix later this week and into next. Rodgers will be traded to the Jets (right?). It’s just a matter of when, and it seems Green Bay’s sixth-year GM is playing hardball so as to extract the most value for arguably the best player in franchise history.
Neither side has
all the leverage. The Packers are
incentivized to trade Rodgers before the draft begins on April 27 so they can use whatever draft capital they recoup to help build around quarterback
Jordan Love right away. The Jets’ incentive to trade for Rodgers sooner rather than later is that, well, they presumably want to get their preferred starting quarterback in the building.
The Packers aren’t asking for multiple first-round picks, according to a source with knowledge of negotiations, but it would make sense if Gutekunst is asking for at least the No. 13 overall pick in this year’s draft in return for Rodgers. Until a resolution is reached, Rodgers remains under contract with the Packers despite his public admission on “The Pat McAfee Show” last week that he wants to and intends to play for the Jets.
If Rodgers isn’t traded before the draft, a scenario that seems unlikely, the next deadline to watch is June 1. If Rodgers is traded before June 1, the Packers shoulder a dead money hit of more than $40 million this year. If he’s traded after June 1, the dead money hit for this year is less than $16 million and the remainder of that approximately $40 million falls on the 2024 books. The other financial deadline to watch is Sept. 1, as Rodgers’ contract is currently constructed. If Rodgers is still under contract with the Packers by then, both teams will have a whole new dilemma on their hands.
The Packers have still conducted other business through the first week of free agency, albeit not much of grand significance, despite the Rodgers trade not yet being finalized.
Here are some thoughts on what Green Bay has done so far in the new league year and what’s left on the checklist.
Priority No. 2
Outside of finding an appropriate deal for Rodgers, Green Bay’s top priority in free agency was retaining first-team All-Pro kick returner
Keisean Nixon after the 25-year-old helped transform a long-suffering special teams unit last season.
The Packers did that in signing Nixon to a one-year, $4 million deal, with $1.85 million fully guaranteed, according to Over The Cap. This was a move they had to make. Despite returning only one kickoff in the first seven games of the season, Nixon led the league in kick return yards (1,009), ranked second in yards per kick return (28.83) and returned a kick for a touchdown to spark a blowout win over the
Vikings in Week 17. He also averaged 12.73 yards per punt return on 11 returns, in addition to playing 28 percent of Green Bay’s defensive snaps, mainly in the slot.
With special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia adding the title of assistant head coach, the two most important figures to Green Bay’s 2022 special teams resurgence will be back in 2023, and with deeper pockets.
Who has walked
It’s no shock that the Packers let wide receiver
Allen Lazard (Jets), tight end
Robert Tonyan (
Bears), defensive lineman
Jarran Reed (
Seahawks) and defensive lineman
Dean Lowry (Vikings) sign elsewhere.
The Jets signed Lazard to a four-year, $44 million deal with $22 million fully guaranteed, according to Over The Cap. That’s too expensive for the Packers, whose top two receivers for next season are already set in
Christian Watson and
Romeo Doubs. Lazard is an exemplary role player and authored an admirable rise from undrafted free agent to trusted option for Rodgers, but $11 million per year is too rich for Green Bay given the role Lazard would’ve taken on had he returned. It doesn’t seem like there was a chance of that happening anyway, as Lazard said during his introductory press conference with the Jets that Green Bay didn’t show any interest in retaining him.
“They didn’t seem like they were going to miss me too much,” he said.
According to Over The Cap, Tonyan signed a one-year, $2.65 million deal with the Bears. This one wasn’t a matter of cost for the Packers. It simply seemed that Tonyan’s time in Green Bay had run its course as he dissipated in the team’s red-zone plans after returning from a torn ACL he suffered midway through the 2021 season. The Packers need a pass-catching tight end, and their most likely source for a Tonyan replacement is through a draft deep at the position.
Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer and Utah’s Dalton Kincaid highlight the class, and Gutekunst could take either as early as the first round. The only notable free-agent tight end still unsigned is former Dallas Cowboy Dalton Schultz, who turns 27 in July and has caught 198 passes for 2,000 yards and 17 touchdowns over the last three seasons.
Letting Lowry walk was inevitable, but allowing Reed to go as well signals Green Bay’s commitment to young defensive linemen
Devonte Wyatt and
T.J. Slaton. Maybe 2023 is finally the year that
Kenny Clark and company stop the run and generate an interior pass rush of substance.
Who’s left
Of our
top 10 Packers free agents this year, four remain unsigned: safety Adrian Amos, kicker Mason Crosby, tight end Marcedes Lewis and wide receiver Randall Cobb.
Lewis and Cobb are both close friends of Rodgers and might be included in the same package as the four-time MVP, so you’d imagine both are done in Green Bay after their respective immense contributions to the organization. It has been reported that the Jets have shown interest in both. Lewis needs one more season to set the record for most games played by a tight end in NFL history and has plenty left in the tank, at least as a blocker. His value to head coach Matt LaFleur’s offense and Green Bay’s locker room will be hard to replace.
Cobb still carries some juice, especially on third down and after the catch. But his value dips if a quarterback he doesn’t have as strong a rapport with as Rodgers is throwing to him.
Crosby is an interesting case. At last month’s NFL combine, Gutekunst sounded like a GM ready to re-sign the 38-year-old kicker who, despite never missing a game in the regular season or postseason since the Packers drafted him in 2007, doesn’t seem to have the same strength in his right leg that he used to.
Perhaps Gutekunst disagrees.
“As you guys know, he went through a pretty significant little (knee) injury right before the (season) started,” Gutekunst said. “I don’t know if he was ever really able to completely catch up because of what we were asking him to do. He had to go out there and kick for us right away, so I think it’s a credit to him. To be able to kick in Lambeau Field in clutch situations, I mean, any new kicker, that’s gonna be tough for those guys. That takes time and Mason has that. He has that experience and stuff. I think you’ll see a stronger leg and a different power in his leg on kickoffs this coming year just because he won’t be coming off that surgery.”
Parker White, who kicked for South Carolina from 2017 to 2021, is the only kicker currently under contract with the Packers.
At safety, the Packers re-signed
Rudy Ford, who filled in decently last season when Amos suffered a concussion against the
Patriots in Week 4 and when
Darnell Savage Jr. was benched. They also added Tarvarius Moore, a 2018 third-round pick of the 49ers who has started only 13 games in four seasons. Innis Gaines and Tariq Carpenter are still on the roster, but the Packers need to: a) pray Savage plays like a starter in his fifth year to at least validate his approximately $8 million guaranteed salary; and b) add another starting-caliber safety. The only two unsigned safeties who fit that criteria are Amos, who struggled in Green Bay last season, and
John Johnson III, a career starter for the
Rams and
Browns. If the Packers don’t add either, look for Gutekunst to address the position early in the draft.
Elsewhere on the list of unsigned former Packers are safety Dallin Leavitt and linebacker Eric Wilson, both core special-teamers. Because of how vital both were to Bisaccia’s operation last season, expect both to be back in Green Bay.
