Gutekunst Hopes Mercilus Can Add Blast-From-Past Impact
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Whether this season ends in Super Bowl or it ends in bust, general manager Brian Gutekunst continues to push the envelope.
Gutekunst’s aggressive approach continued Wednesday with the addition of outside linebacker Whitney Mercilus. The signing was made official before practice on Thursday.
Even without Pro Bowler Za’Darius Smith and his 13-sack average from his first two seasons in Green Bay, the pass rush has been fine. Through Week 6, Green Bay is 13th in sack percentage (6.93 percent). Of course, there’s more to rushing the passer than sacks. Green Bay is 11th in quarterback hits (37, according to the official stats) and 19th in team pressures (53, according to SportRadar).
With the Packers rolling to five consecutive victories and a two-game lead in the NFC North, Gutekunst could have left well enough alone. In response to Za’Darius Smith, Chauncey Rivers and Randy Ramsey being on injured reserve and Preston Smith dealing with an oblique injury, Gutekunst could have done what his predecessor would have done and promoted Tipa Galeai from the practice and found some other young guy to take Galeai’s spot on the practice squad.
Instead, Gutekunst continued with his “all-in” approach to the roster. The Packers don’t have much cap space remaining for this season ($3.75 million, according to the NFLPA) and, because they tens of millions of dollars of 2021 cap dollars into 2022, they’re up to their eyeballs in debt for next season ($43.8 million over next year’s cap ceiling, according to OverTheCap.com). Saying to hell with the finances in unprecedented fashion for this franchise, Gutekunst added a potential impact player who can help this year and will figure out next year when it’s time.
Not that Mercilus is going to cost a lot of money. But those minimum deals for Mercilus, linebacker Jaylon Smith and cornerback Rasul Douglas, three recent veteran additions that followed the training camp additions of receiver Randall Cobb and offensive tackle Dennis Kelly, all take bites out of the remainder of the cap apple.
Long removed from his only season of double-digits sacks (12 in 2015), the big question is what Mercilus can contribute. He has three sacks this season, which would tie Kenny Clark for the team high. But, again, there’s more to rushing the passer than sacking the quarterback. And that’s where there’s concern. Of 68 edge defenders with at least 100 pass-rushing snaps, Mercilus ranks a woeful 62nd in pass-rushing productivity, a Pro Football Focus metric that combines sacks, hits and hurries per pass-rushing snap. He’s got five pressures in 102 snaps as a pass rusher. Top backup Jonathan Garvin has nine pressures in 79 opportunities.
“Situational pass rusher,” a high-ranking personnel executive said via text. “Not sure he has much left. In a role there, he may be OK. He was on his last leg in Houston.”
Perhaps true. But, like Cobb equated leaving Houston and landing in Green Bay to getting out of prison, maybe the opportunity to play for a winner after being on the winning side of only five of the last 22 games with the Texans will revive the 31-year-old’s career.
“Guys like that, they want to come to a winning team,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said. “When you go from 1-5 to 5-1, that’s a whole new outlook on life, I think. Now Jaylon, obviously, went from a good team to a good team but, for Whitney, I think that can breathe some life into a player like that, for sure.”
By the end of Sunday’s game, the Packers had eight starters out of the lineup due to injuries, including the two starting outside linebackers and two starting cornerbacks. In a quarterback-driven league, that’s a recipe for disaster – especially with upcoming games against the likes of Kyler Murray, Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson (maybe), Kirk Cousins and Matthew Stafford. If you can’t rush the passer, maybe you can win with excellent coverage. If you can’t cover, maybe you can win with an excellent pass rush.
With Mercilus, the hope is the pass rush will be good enough that the defense can survive until Jaire Alexander’s potential return.
And if this season really is Super Bowl and not bust, this quote from the MVP will be the one to remember.
“This season is beginning to remind me a little bit of a season over a decade ago, where we’ve had a number of injuries and in the course of the season added certain pieces to the mix that ended up playing a big role down the line,” Rodgers said.
“I think you guys can imagine what season I’m talking about, which is a good thing.”
