Finally out of the financial shadow of the Aaron Rodgers era and with a young and mostly cheap team, Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst likes where his team is from a salary cap perspective at the approach of the 2025 offseason.
The Packers have the cap space and flexibility to retain free agents, re-sign young players and aggressively target veterans this offseason.
“I feel really good about our ability to do what we need to do to field a championship-level team,” Gutekunst said Thursday. “The opportunities available are unknown at the moment, we will see how it goes, but we are in a better situation than in the last 2-3 years.”
Gutekunst and Russ Ball made a quick and efficient renovation of the salary cap during the transition from the Rodgers era to the Jordan Love era at quarterback.
“Russ does a fantastic job with our cap,” Gutekunst said. “All the decisions we’ve made over the last few years have put us in a position where we’re in pretty good shape right now. Again, we have to continue to make good decisions…we have a lot of good players on rookie contracts right now. We need to make sure we can extend these guys when the time comes.
According to Over the Cap, the Packers had approximately $50 million in cap space and just over $38 million in effective cap space as of mid-January. The dead money from trading Rodgers and transitioning several veteran players has largely disappeared from the cap, saving Gutekunst from having to make a bunch of salary conversions and cap tricks to create a operating room financially this offseason.
Gutekunst said he would like to be in that situation — with cap flexibility to do different things — every offseason instead of borrowing from the future as was necessary through the challenges of COVID and trying to keep a roster of veterans around Rodgers, but he won’t. avoid this situation if it is necessary to borrow in the future to add elite and high-end players in unique situations.
Gutekunst made it clear that players like Josh Jacobs and Xavier McKinney — two free agents who made the Pro Bowl in their first year in Green Bay — don’t come around often. And when they become available, he wants the Packers to be aggressive in getting them, regardless of the cap situation.
“I feel like I approach every offseason like I have to attack it aggressively,” Gutekunst said. “We’ll see what happens in the free agency class, who gets re-signs, who doesn’t, the causalities of the salary cap. If it suits us, we will attack it.
Entering year three with Love as the starting quarterback, Gutekunst said it’s “time” for this group of Packers to start competing for championships. After creating valuable flexibility with the salary cap over the past few seasons, Gutekunst now has the opportunity to add a few pieces that could help the Packers go from good to great in 2025.