Green Bay Packers May Follow Familiar Blueprint to Fix Safety Issue
GREEN BAY Wis. – When Brian Gutekunst took over as the general manager of the Green Bay Packers, he knew he had to perform surgery on a roster that had fallen from the league's elite.
One of the weakest positions on his roster was outside linebacker.
Just two years before Gutekunst's promotion, the outside linebackers were able to boast about a deep room that included Nick Perry, Clay Matthews, Julius Peppers and Mike Neal. All of those players, however, struggled with injury issues or age-related decline the next two seasons.
Matthews looked like a shell of himself by the end of 2018. Perry's breakout 2016 season looked like a one-year wonder. Neal always felt like someone who was miscast as a standup outside linebacker.
Gutekunst entered the offseason following the 2018 regular season with a team in transition. The old guard was mostly gone, but they had a new coach, Matt LaFleur, and a two-time MVP quarterback, Aaron Rodgers.
So, Gutekunst took drastic measures.
He allowed Matthews to sign in Los Angeles to play for the Rams. He released Perry. Those moves came a year after allowing Peppers and Neal to leave via free agency.
All of their preferred pass rushers from the last two seasons were gone.
The last man standing was Kyler Fackrell.
Everyone knows what happened next.
Za'Darius Smith and Preston Smith were signed in free agency to help anchor Mike Pettine's defense. One month later, Gutekunst drafted Rashan Gary with the 12th overall pick.
The outside linebacker room went from empty to fully stocked because Gutekunst forced himself to make that position better for the rest of the team.
Gutekunst finds himself in a similar predicament this offseason.
Last year, the Packers were a team in transition. They were taking their salary cap medicine. With Rodgers' cap hit of more than $40 million on the books, there was little Gutekunst could do to meaningfully add to his team.
That led to bargain hunting at a safety position that, like the rest of the team, was in transition with Adrian Amos being allowed to leave via free agency.
Jonathan Owens, Rudy Ford and Tarvarius Moore signed one-year contracts in the offseason and former first-round pick Darnell Savage was back on the fifth-year option.
Owens and Ford rotated through the starting lineup this season. Moore did not make it out of training camp.
All of their contracts, along with Savage's, are set to expire when the new league-year begins in March.
Could the Packers look at bringing someone like Owens or Ford back for peanuts due to their value on special teams?
That seems possible, if not likely.
Even if they are back, none are likely to be preferred starters on a defense the Packers should be striving to make championship-level.
Even if the way Gutekunst approached outside linebackers following 2018 is not a perfect comparison, he knows he has a blueprint to follow to make drastic changes to a position group.
His new defensive coordinator, Jeff Hafley, has a background in coaching defensive backs, and Gutekunst made sure to make a point that his team needs to get better there in his season-ending press availability.
"Yeah, initially pretty solid at safety as far as the draft class goes, and then the free-agency class as well," Gutekunst said. "But I think again a little bit of that will be determined as we sit down with Jeff and get his vision for what we’re going to do on defense.
“But we’re going to have to add numbers there, for sure. And I think more and more in the National Football League, those positions — along with the nickel position — are becoming interchangeable positions. You ask a lot of those guys. And I also think you have to have depth because, again, defensive backs get injured and you have to be able to adjust and be able to keep playing high-level football, no matter who’s in there. So, certainly, that has our attention."
The 2019 offseason saw Gutekunst add two high-profile free agents and a first-round pick to the outside linebacker room.
Gutekunst has liked to attack his perceived weaknesses with multiple moves.
In 2019, he signed both Smiths and drafted Gary. The year prior, he signed Davon House and drafted cornerbacks in each of the first two rounds.
With the team’s salary cap still recovering from pushing money into the future, it's unlikely the Packers will be able to swim in the deep end of the pool of the free agent market.
Gutekunst did note, however, that he will not shy away from trying to add to his team.
“I think it just depends on the player," Gutekunst said.
"It depends on who that is and how he can impact our football team. I don’t think we’ll shy away from adding impact players if we have to push things down the road. We’d prefer not to do that but, at the same time, this is about winning and trying to win a championship. So, if that’s something that makes sense, we’ll do it."
Between possible aggressiveness in free agency and the 11 draft picks they're projected to have, one thing appears certain.
The Packers are going to have some new faces in their defensive backfield.
