Packers head into offseason with cap space and ready to ‘attack it aggressively’

Paul Bretl | 1/17/2025

GREEN BAY, Wis. — “It’s time we started competing for championships,” said Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst on Thursday. That response was sparked by a question about what disappointed him about the 2024 season. In short, Gutekunst wants more urgency from this team–which he knows they can deliver on–because the time to win is now.

However, while all that may be true, at the same time, Gutekunst said he’s not a big believer in there being a “championship window” for a team and letting that dictate how an offseason unfolds.

Instead, and as we’ve seen the Packers operate for years, even beyond Gutekunst’s tenure, this is a process-driven organization, and the output from those various processes, whether it comes to free agency, the draft, or how to navigate the salary cap, will determine how the Packers’ proceed rather than a gut feeling because of some hypothetical window.

That approach may not sound aggressive, but Gutekunst believes that the team does operate aggressively each offseason. As we saw in 2024, if the right player or players are available–like a Josh Jacobs and Xavier McKinney–the Packers will make those additions and pay either top of market or near top of market value to do so.

But what I believe is a big difference from the outside perspective of an aggressive offseason versus how the Packers view it is that with those aforementioned processes that Green Bay has in place, if from an age, production, locker room fit, and salary cap perspective a signing makes sense, they’ll make an attempt to do so. However, for many outside of the organization, aggressive means getting the best free agent at a position of need regardless of what those other elements that are a part of the equation have to say.

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“I think I view every offseason that we have to attack it aggressively,” said Gutekunst. “The opportunities that present themselves, whether that be free agency or trade, are different every year. Every year there’s not going to be a Josh Jacobs or an Xavier McKinney out there to go get.

“So we’ll see kinda what transpires through the free agency class – who gets re-signed, who doesn’t, if there’s salary cap casualties, if there’s trade opportunities, all those. But I think we always operate under the aggressive mindset, but we have a process that we go through and we’ll see what’s available. If it’s right for us, then we’re going to attack it. If they’re not there, it’s not there.”

On paper, the Packers will have the ability to be somewhat aggressive in free agency this offseason. With a large number of players still on inexpensive rookie deals, Green Bay currently has $50.33 million in available cap space, according to Over the Cap, which in terms of spending power, ranks as the 10th-most among the NFL.

In addition to exploring outside free agent options, which could include bolstering the cornerback, pass rusher, and wide receiver positions, some of that cap space is going to have to be utilized on retaining some of their own pending free agents. A few notable names for the Packers are Josh Myers, Eric Stokes, Brandon McManus, and TJ Slaton among others.

“I feel really good,” said Gutekunst about the Packers’ salary cap situation. “Russ (Ball) does a fantastic job with our cap and all the decisions we’ve made over the past few years has put us in the situation where we’re in pretty good shape right now. Again, we’ve got to keep making good decisions, and it’s never a one-year thing. You’re looking at two, three years down the road as far as how these things impact things.

“We have a lot of good players that are under rookie contracts right now, and we’ve got to make sure we’re able to extend those guys when that time comes, but I feel really good our ability to go do what we need to do to field a championship-level team.”

During the end of the Aaron Rodgers-era in Green Bay, with a number of veteran contracts on that roster, the Packers routinely borrowed from the future salary cap–like a credit card–by restructuring numerous contracts and even utilizing void years, which pushed some of the current year’s salary cap charges to future seasons. This was done in an effort to run it back and make another Super Bowl push.

Going back to the ‘aggressive’ conversation, aggressiveness in an NFL offseason can come in a few different forms. It’s not only who teams bring in or what they spend but in how they manipulate the salary cap. The Packers during those two offseason in 2021 and 2022 were operating aggressively from a salary cap perspective, pushing hefty amounts of cap chargers to future seasons.

That approach was very much against the norm for the Packers organization, but Gutekunst believed those were necessary moves at the time in order to field the best team. Gutekunst prefers where the team is currently cap-wise compared to those years and, ideally, things will stay this way. But for the right player–because they don’t come along very often–or if in a certain situation, he’s willing to go down that less-flexible salary cap road again if needed.

“Certainly we’d love to be in that situation every year where you have a lot of flexibility to do what you need to do,” Gutekunst added. “I think depending on the opportunities that are out there and your football team or where you’re at can dictate some of that. Again, I think whenever there are players like X or Josh that are out there, which isn’t very often, I think even if you don’t have great flexibility, you have to really consider adding those kind of players because there’s just not that many of ’em.

“So again, I feel really good where we’re at right now, would love to stay in that kind of flexibility year to year. We’ll certainly try to do that, but at the same time if we kinda have to do some different things because we have an opportunity to acquire a player that can impact our team like these two guys did, we’ll do it.”

The draft is always going to be the Packers preferred avenue for adding talent to the roster and free agency is a supplemental tool. If teams are able to regularly hit on picks and get early contributions, the benefit of getting that type of production from a player on a rookie deal, who has a long runway with his entire career ahead of him, can often out-weigh the hefty contract given to a veteran already in their prime.

In a salary cap league, building out your roster through big free-agent acquisitions just is not a prudent long-term answer–there just isn’t enough cap space to go around. Good organizations are good in the draft.

The Packers will utilize some of that cap space to add free agents this offseason and bring back some of their own as well. Now, does that mean Tee Higgins is on their radar? We will find out. But what goes into determining that is far greater than the team recognizing that they need receiver help and him being the top receiver on the market.

“We’ve always been draft-and-develop, we believe in that,” said Gutekunst. “The development of our own players will always be a high priority for us. We, I think it’s one of the benefits we have in working here in Green Bay is we’re allowed to give guys time to really develop, and that’s certainly something that we’ll continue to do.”

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