Paul Bretl | 3/25/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The outside world is, of course, fixated on what’s happening right now with the Packers and how good they hope this team can be in 2025. However, for GM Brian Gutekunst, when it comes to the salary cap and construction of the roster, he’s always looking two or three years down the road and how the decisions today will impact the Packers in future years.
“We have a process that we go through and we’ll see what’s available,” said Gutekunst about free agency after the season. “If it’s right for us, then we’re going to attack it. If they’re not there, it’s not there.”
To what degree, I don’t know, but the Packers’ salary cap outlook for the 2026 season, coupled with there being a number of their own players up for new deals–and some big ones at that–I would guess played some sort of factor in how the team approached free agency this offseason.
Hit like and subscribe to my YouTube Channel ‘The Paul Bretl Show’ for more Packers coverage.
Now, with that said, it’s not as if the Packers didn’t do any spending this offseason. Nate Hobbs signed a four-year, $48 million deal, and Aaron Banks signed a four-year deal worth $77 million. But structure-wise, while the hope is that things don’t play out this way, the Packers do have outs as early as 2026 in both deals if that’s what’s needed.
While these are big deals, the Packers maintained some flexibility long-term–or at least as much as you can given the size of the contracts.
So for a team where the theme of the offseason is urgency, which Gutekunst brought up at his season-ending press conference, and with big needs at wide receiver and along the defensive front, why didn’t we see the Packers taking more swings when, as Gutekunst put it, it’s time to start competing for championships?
Looking ahead to 2026 may provide us with some of that insight. As of now, the Packers have $25.61 million in available cap space, according to Over the Cap. Compared to the rest of the NFL, this only ranks 25th. The Packers are currently scheduled to have six players with cap hits of at least $24 million, including two players with cap hits north of $31 million. This season, for some context, the Packers have just three players with a cap hit of at least $24 million and none over the $30 million mark.
So the natural cap hit increases baked into these contracts that are already on the books are going to add some limitations to what the Packers can do cap-wise next offseason, which can then impact the deals that are added to the books during the current offseason.
But in addition to that, one of the trickle-down effects that can come with making a big addition now with heavy guarantees, is that it not only decreases future cap space, but it can impact who is signed down the road, including a team’s own free agents, which the Packers have some key ones next offseason.
This list of 2026 free agents includes Zach Tom, Rasheed Walker, Sean Rhyan, Romeo Doubs, JJ Enagbare, and Christian Watson, along with Devonte Wyatt and Quay Walker if their fifth-year options aren’t picked up.
Obviously, not all of those players will be brought back, but Tom and Walker, in particular, are on track to land some big second contracts, and the free agent decisions made today can impact what moves are made–or not made–in the future by the Packers.
“We’ve got to keep making good decisions, and it’s never a one-year thing,” said Gutekunst after the season. “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.”
As always, there are ways to create more cap space, whether it be through veteran cuts or contract restructures. The contract restructures, which in short, pushes cap charges from the current year to future contract years, was a tool that we saw Gutekunst use often during the 2021 and 2022 offseasons in an effort to keep those veteran-heavy Packers’ teams together.
For the right player or in the right situation, Gutekunst will go down that contract restructure path again, but now free of many of those past cap saving maneuvers, he would prefer to operate in the salary cap world that the Packers are currently living in, which is one with flexibility and one where they aren’t reliant on kicking the salary cap can down the road.
“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 said. “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.”
None of these offseason moves from the GM’s perspective are made within a vacuum. It’s never as simple as how much cap space is available and what’s the cap hit for a player this season? There is a ripple effect that comes after any big decision is made that impacts future years’ cap space and who can be signed or re-signed at that time, and all of that is taken into consideration.
All of this only adds to the importance of a team hitting on their draft picks. Getting high-impact play from players on rookie deals is incredibly valuable in today’s NFL, which the Packers will continue to lean heavily on when it comes to their roster-building approach.
Now, is this foolproof when it comes to getting the Packers to being a championship level team? Absolutely not. Nothing is guaranteed. But when wondering why the Packers didn’t make a splash at receiver or along the defensive line in free agency, there’s a lot that goes into that decision beyond there simply being a need–the cap situation and roster outlook in future years can carry plenty of weight.