Is Packers’ Brian Gutekunst a Top-5 NFL GM?

Here’s a glimpse at Pro Football Network’s general manager rankings.

Bill Huber | May 9, 2024

Packers GM Brian Gutekunst / Sarah Kloepping/USA TODAY

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – In Pro Football Network’s newsletter, Dallas Robinson took a swing at ranking the NFL’s general managers from best to worst.

Green Bay Packers GM Brian Gutekunst is fourth.

“Brian Gutekunst deftly managed the Aaron Rodgers situation, navigating the future Hall of Famer's public declarations before trading him for a package that included two second-round picks,” Robinson wrote.

“Green Bay turned to Jordan Love, who finished second in the NFL with 32 touchdown passes and looked like an MVP candidate by the end of his first season as a starter.

“Having a QB succession plan earns Gutekunst praise, but that's not all he's done since taking over as the Packers' GM in 2018.”

Fourth might seem too high. After all, he’s 0-for-6 in building a team that reached the Super Bowl. However, Gutekunst did his part.

The Packers in 2019, 2020 and 2021 became the first team in NFL history to post three consecutive seasons of at least 13 regular-season wins. The 2020 team might have gotten over the hump had David Bakhtiari not been injured late in the season and the NFC Championship Game against Tampa Bay been played in front of a full house at Lambeau Field. The 2021 team was a powerhouse, as well, but fell on its face in the playoffs, and the 2022 team was an abject failure.

While Gutekunst had some dud drafts and acquiesced too much to the desires of Rodgers, he deserves credit for having the foresight and fortitude to draft Love in 2020 and for his monster draft classes in 2022 and 2023.

More than that, the enormous contract extension handed to Rodgers and the subsequent trade of the quarterback left the Packers in salary-cap purgatory. But Gutekunst has deftly gotten the team through those tough times. Buoyed by those powerful drafts, the Packers ended the 2023 season as one of the top teams in the NFL.

Gutekunst pushed all his chips to the middle of the table last year, betting on Love to grow and, eventually, thrive alongside the youngest group of skill-position players in the NFL. He was right on both. Because of Love and that fleet of talented pass-catchers, the Packers are considered a prime Super Bowl contender in 2024.

The NFL’s best GM? Philadelphia’s Howie Roseman, who nudged aside Kansas City’s Brett Veach for the top spot. The worst? Denver’s George Paton, due in part to the ill-fated hiring of former Packers offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett.

In the NFC North, Gutekunst is just ahead of Detroit’s Brad Holmes, who is fifth.

“Holmes, the reigning NFL Executive of the Year, and (coach Dan) Campbell executed about as clean of a revamp as an NFL team could possibly orchestrate,” Robinson wrote. “Can the Lions take things to the next level in 2024?”

Here are the rankings at PFN.

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Published May 9, 2024

BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packer Central, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.