When Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst talked about “ramp(ing) up our sense of urgency,” the assumption was that it would mean an aggressive approach to improving the roster. That has not been the case.
Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst speaks during the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Urgency.
That was the buzzword surrounding the Green Bay Packers this offseason, and for good reason, following a disappointing 11-6 season that finished with a first-round playoff exit.
The Packers were supposed to be competing for a Super Bowl championship when the 2024 season began. Instead, they never really came close.
General manager Brian Gutekunst took note and addressed that situation accordingly at the end of the season.
“We need to continue to ramp up our sense of urgency,” Gutekunst said a few days after the season-ending loss to the Eagles. “The life of a player in the National Football League is not very long. We’ve got a bunch of good guys in that locker room, we’ve got a bunch of talented guys in that locker room, and I think it’s time we started competing for championships.”
Most assumed the “sense of urgency” would extend from the front office all the way into the locker room.
Gutekunst had been big-game hunting before. He’s no stranger to handing out contracts at the top of the free agent market. Just last year, he signed Xavier McKinney and Josh Jacobs to eye-popping deals. The prevailing thought was Gutekunst would acquire more high-end talent to supplement his roster this offseason.
Gutekunst’s actions, however, have not lined up with what that prevailing thought.
DK Metcalf was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers and Davante Adams signed with the Los Angeles Rams. The Packers never really pursued either player; they didn’t even touch base with Adams about a reunion.
The top edge rushers, Josh Sweat and Dayo Odeyingbo, signed with the Arizona Cardinals and Chicago Bears, respectively. The Packers were not seriously connected to either player, despite Gutekunst and coach Matt LaFleur speaking about their desire to pressure the quarterback with their front four.
Yes, Gutekunst did add to his team. He made Aaron Banks the sixth-highest-paid guard in the NFL by average salary, even though the offensive line was not seen as a primary need entering the offseason. Nate Hobbs, who played in the slot the last two years for the Raiders, was given $48 million over four years.
Banks and Hobbs will help the Packers in 2025, but it’d be fair to say their actions this offseason have been underwhelming.
That could mean Gutekunst likes the talent he has assembled in Green Bay.
Yes, the NFL is less patient than ever. The reality is the Packers were never going to give up on players like Lukas Van Ness, who was a first-round pick less than 24 months ago, or his young receiver room, which was highly touted coming into 2024.
Maybe Gutekunst was not talking about the need to add to his roster, but rather the talented group that he has needing to take care of things themselves.
Think about the 2024 season for a minute. Anytime the Packers played a big game, a central theme emerged. They started slowly and dug too deep a hole on the scoreboard.
Sometimes they made things interesting late, other times they didn’t. Ultimately, they would lose the game and be left wondering what could have gone differently.
After a 27-25 loss to the Minnesota Vikings in the penultimate game of the season, Xavier McKinney lamented the fact that he could not say his team was on the same level as the elite teams in the NFC.
“I want to say yeah,” McKinney said when asked if the Packers were as good as the Vikings, Lions, and Eagles. “But, right now, the story is we haven’t beaten those teams. … We gotta be more on our details, we gotta play cleaner, we gotta start faster.”
Comments like that would have been understandable after one game early in the season that could be taken as a learning lesson. However, both losses to the Vikings played out nearly the same way.
In the game at Lambeau Field, the Packers trailed 28-0 before mounting a comeback that fell short. In the game at Minnesota, the Packers fell behind 20-3 and 27-10 before a 15-point rally in the fourth quarter.
The Packers followed that up with a bizarre 24-22 loss to the Chicago Bears in which their approach to the game appeared unclear, leading to a natural feeling of disinterest. If the goal was to rest their top players, the Packers failed. If the goal was to build momentum, they also failed.
The final result was a 22-10 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card round and a three-game losing streak to finish what was supposed to be a promising season.
Perhaps the most damning quote came from second-year tight end Tucker Kraft. As the players cleaned out their lockers before heading home for the offseason, Kraft talked about the finish to the season.
Tucker Kraft in locker room cleanout today said he could kind of feel "what was brewing for us."
Said he plans to step up as a leader and would't call the season a complete failure, but disappointing.
He also said the #Packers need to "wake up." pic.twitter.com/z28Rrc1jBT
— John Miller (@JohnMillerNBC26) January 13, 2025
“The whole last few games we played, you could kind of feel what was brewing for us,” Kraft said. Then, he added the money words that echoed what Gutekunst would say a few days later.
“As a team, we need to wake up,” Kraft said. “Everyone talks about how we’re just not OK with just making the playoffs, but we have yet to walk the walk.”
Perhaps the Packers, a team with just one playoff win during the Jordan Love era, were a little too confident coming into the season. They openly talked about the Super Bowl last spring.
Was the team too comfortable? Too confident? Did that lead to a lack of urgency due to the belief they would reach their peak performance?
When asked about his “urgency” comment at the Scouting Combine, Gutekunst implied complacency, not talent, was the larger issue.
“I think just not being complacent, right? There’s been a lot of talk about our youth, which I don’t really buy into, and I just want to make sure our organization as a whole understands what the standard and the bar is, and not being complacent.
“We lost our last three games. We can’t lose sight of that. As we attack the offseason and get into training camp and everything we’re going to go through before we get to next season, that’s just got to be on top of our mind.”
