With the free agency negotiating window officially opening today, the NFL’s 32 teams will be looking to fill gaps ahead of the NFL Draft and otherwise improve their rosters before the 2025 season.
This year’s crop of free agents is not especially strong on paper, and was weakened further by Tee Higgins and Trey Smith being pulled from the market via the franchise tag, but still, there is more cap space league wide than ever, and teams looking to improve their standing have will have to make bets on which players can help them reach their goals.
Last year’s playoff teams will be hoping to find key pieces to push them over the top, and fortunately for the Green Bay Packers, they appear to be the team best positioned to push the ‘go’ button.
Of the 14 teams who made the playoffs last year, the Packers rank in the middle of the pack for available cap space at around $42.8m, with five teams listed as having more cap space.
They are the Chargers with $90.7m, Commanders with $79.7m, Steelers with $63.7m (after acquiring DK Metcalf and handing him a $30m per year deal, they probably now have less than the Packers), Vikings with $62.9m (less after they renewed Aaron Jones’ contract), and the Lions with $51.1m.
Green Bay has an advantage over all those clubs, though and that advantage is that there is very little they truly ‘need’.
Green Bay currently has 67 players slated to be on their opening roster entering next season, which is more than any other team in the league, and six more than any other 2024 playoff team.
The Chargers and Commanders may have a boatload of cap space, but they only have 46 and 47 players respectively on their roster as things stand.
Both teams are victims of their own success in a way. In their first year with new defensive play callers, they both patched their group together with veterans on one-year contracts to see what stuck.
They both overachieved, and now many of those players who were so important to their success a year ago are set to be free agents again, and they have to decide which players they now want to commit to.
Los Angeles is losing Khalil Mack, Asante Samuel Jr, J.K. Dobbins, Poona Ford, Elijah Molden, Teair Tart, Kristian Fulton, Josh Palmer and Gus Edwards to free agency, and they also just released Joey Bosa.
For Washington, Bobby Wagner, Dante Fowler, Jeremy Chinn and Zach Ertz are set to hit the market, and they added Jonathan Allen to that list by cutting him.
A lot of these players are older, and based on their play a year ago, will not come at the same discount price. It makes bringing any of them back a tougher call, and would eat up a fair amount of cap space just to return essentially the same team from 2024, before spending anything to make upgrades.
The Vikings and Steelers are in a similar boat, but they also have the burden of having questions at the quarterback position, an answer to which could also cut heavily into their cap space.
Pittsburgh are losing both their quarterbacks from 2024 in Justin Fields and Russell Wilson, although it seems Fields may return, at a price to be determined. They are also set to lose James Daniels, Daniel Moore, Najee Harris, Mike Williams and Elandon Roberts, as well as former Packer Preston Smith, who they just cut.
Minnesota is acting as if they do not have confidence in J.J. McCarthy returning in a timely fashion from his torn meniscus, which required a second surgery.
They entertained bringing Sam Darnold back, who now could be bound for Seattle, and have recently been linked to Aaron Rodgers (sigh).
Even if they do not pay out a substantial amount for a quarterback, they still have multiple free agents set to leave, including Camryn Bynum, Byron Murphy, Harrison Smith, Stephon Gilmore and Dalton Risner.
Things look better for the Lions, who are set to lose Carlton Davis, Kevin Zeitler and Levi Onwuzurike, all those players are key contributors though.
Meanwhile in Green Bay, the best free agent the Packers will see hit free agency is Josh Myers, who has been a below average starting center for them, and Eric Stokes, who was not a starter by season’s end.
The biggest hole the Packers will open up on their roster will be self-inflicted, when Jaire Alexander’s inevitable departure takes place.
Myers will likely be replaced internally via some shuffling around on the offensive line, and with the resources at their disposal, Green Bay could sign their top cornerback target to a lucrative deal and still have plenty left over to do essentially anything they ‘want’ to do, rather than ‘need’ to.
General manager Brian Gutekunst has done a great job of putting together a young, talented team with a lot of depth in just a couple of years, and now just needs to add more star power to the mix.
That may be easier said than done in this free agency class, which lacks players who already have a track record of excellence like Josh Jacobs or Xavier McKinney, but Gutekunst has shown he can identify ascending players via free agency in the past, such as Za’Darius Smith and Adrian Amos.
With very few glaring needs, and a healthy cap position, the Packers are arguably in the best position of any of last year’s playoff teams to take swings at finding players whose best football is ahead of them and can help push them towards a Super Bowl.
