At Scouting Combine, Packers GM Shares Expectation for Rashan Gary

INDIANAPOLIS – Green Bay Packers defensive Rashan Gary is coming off a first-to-worst season.

Because of it, will he get an eighth season with that team that drafted him in the first round in 2019 and gave him a $96 million contract extension in 2023?

“Sixty pressures, 7.5 sacks, that’s tough to replace,” Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said at the Scouting Combine on Tuesday. “He’s on our roster and I expect him to play at that level or higher if he’s back next year, and we’ll see how that goes.”

If that was a tepid “expect” from Gutekunst, what he said later perhaps shed stronger light on the defensive captain’s future with the team. More on that in a moment.

Gary in 2026 is owed an $18.0 million base salary. Including workout and roster bonuses, he is set to earn $19.5 million in cash. Among edge defenders, his cap charge of $28.02 million ranks seventh, according to OverTheCap.com. That’s an astronomical amount of money for a player who managed to finish the season with 10 consecutive games without a sack.

If the Packers, who are slightly over the salary cap, were to release Gary, they’d create $10.98 million of badly needed cap space.

Packers Face Complicated Decision With Rashan Gary

There are other things for Gutekunst to keep in mind, though, as he works to get the team under the cap in time for the start of the league-year on March 11.

One, superstar Micah Parsons suffered a torn ACL late in the season. He almost certainly will not be in the lineup for Week 1. Even when Parsons is back on the field, when will he return to something close to peak form in terms of production and ability to play a high number of snaps?

Two, part-time starting defensive end Kingsley Enagbare is set to be a free agent. The Packers probably would like him back, but they also probably have a price in mind.

Three, fellow defensive ends Brenton Cox and Arron Mosby will be restricted free agents.

Add those factors together and you get four: If the Packers were to release Gary, they would have only Lukas Van Ness and 2025 draft picks Barryn Sorrell and Collin Oliver under contract and available for Week 1.

While Gary’s production fell off a cliff, the last sentence from the following paragraph might be worth keeping in mind.

“Sometimes with pass rushers, there’s some ebb and flow to that as far as production goes with sacks,” Gutekunst said. “He was impactful toward the second half of the season – maybe not as much as he was in the first – but he was impactful. Rashan’s got all the talent in the world and he’s produced at a high level for us since he’s been here. We expect that from him next year, as well.”

Expect him back for next year? That would seem to suggest the Packers will find a way to keep Gary for another season.

Contractually, there are some financial options, though none are tremendously palatable.

One, Gutekunst could restructure the $18.0 million base salary into signing bonus, which would be prorated into 2027, his final season under contract. In that case, Gary would receive the same amount of money in 2026 but his cap hit for the upcoming season would be reduced by $8.35 million. The difference would be pushed into 2027.

A second way would be to give Gary a contract extension, which would allow the team to take the sting out of the remaining contract by lowering his 2026 base salary and inserting void years into the back of the deal.

A third option would be a pay cut with incentives for Gary to make back the lost money. Gary would have to agree to it, though that might be a better option for him given the uncertain free-agent market he’d be thrown into.

Or, the Packers could simply wash their hands of the contract, re-sign Enagbare and roll with what they’ve got.

From Hero to Zero (Sacks)

In a way, Gary is coming off an almost impossible-to-believe season. About the first-to-worst: In the seventh game of the season at Pittsburgh, Gary had two sacks of Aaron Rodgers. At the time, he ranked first in the NFL with 7.5 sacks. Gary, who had never had a 10-sack season in his career, was on pace to potentially threaten 20.

Instead, from Game 8 through the end of the regular season, the team captain had zero sacks and zero tackles for losses. A total of 337 players had at least a half-sack and 516 players had at least one tackle for loss. Even Oliver, who made his NFL debut in Week 18, and cornerback Shemar Bartholomew, who was added from the practice squad for that game, had a TFL.

“That’s pretty good production in the National Football League,” Gutekunst said of Gary’s season-long production of the aforementioned 7.5 sacks and 60 pressures. “I did think towards the end of the year, he wasn’t as productive as he was at the beginning. So, certainly, that will be something I’m sure he looks at personally and we look at as a team, how we can continue to make sure that his production is the same at the beginning and the end of the season.”

From Week 9 through the end of the regular season, Gary among edge defenders played the second-most snaps without a sack.

“I’ve just got to be myself,” Gary said a couple days after Parsons’ injury. “You know, when guys are thinking that they need to do more than what they’ve been doing, you start to strain, start to try to find plays that’s not there. And throughout the season, I’ve been doing a great job of being effective, being myself. And I know if I keep playing at a high level, keep playing how I’m playing, the plays are going to come and it’s going to be right what the team needs.”

At the time, when Gary said he was doing a “great job,” he had just completed a seventh consecutive game without a sack.

With great money comes great expectations. The Packers didn’t win after Parsons’ injury. That includes the playoff disaster at Chicago when Green Bay gave up 25 points in the fourth quarter. It wasn’t all Gary’s fault, to be sure, but he had only one tackle and one quarterback hit in the game.

“For me, seven years, finishing my seventh season, being in the playoffs six, it’s bound to happen,” Gary said of getting to the Super Bowl. “It’s bound to happen but it’s frustrating. Every time we finish like this, it’s all about looking yourself in the mirror and finding areas to improve and come back better than ever, man.

“You got to take it personal. I just can’t wait to watch the tape and see where I could’ve been better, be very critical of myself.”

Will he get a chance to taste that success with the Packers? We’ll know more in about two weeks.

The Packers have a lot of decisions to make at center, which Brian Gutekunst discussed today at the Scouting Combine. ⬇️https://t.co/0nX22eNcXV
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) February 24, 2026

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