In a statistic that is easy to overlook, Green Bay Packers linebacker Quay Walker led the team in tackles for a fourth consecutive year in 2025. Since entering the league as a first-round pick in 2022, Walker has led that department every season.

Entering free agency this offseason, the Packers have a big decision to make with Walker. Do they bring him back or let him walk?

Let’s make the case for and against it.

Keeping Walker alongside Edgerrin Cooper would give Green Bay a hell of a one-two punch at inside linebacker. When the Packers drafted Cooper in the second round two years after taking Walker in Round 1, it showed a significant commitment by the front office to make the duo a dream pairing.

While Walker hasn’t lived up to the hype of a first-round pick, he’s been incredibly reliable as a player who has matured over the last four years after some hiccups in his rookie campaign.

Bringing back Quay Walker would maintain communication in a familiar spot for the entire defense, as Walker has been bestowed the green dot for multiple seasons now. Turning that leadership position over to someone else wouldn’t be the end of the world, but that cohesion has its benefits.

Another point in the case for keeping Walker came directly from general manager Brian Gutekunst, who made it multiple times last offseason. Remember, the Packers picked up the fifth-year option on Devonte Wyatt, Green Bay’s other first-round pick in 2022, but not Walker. However, Gutekunst repeatedly expressed the Packers’ desire to keep both Walker and Wyatt well beyond 2026.

We won’t deal with that until after the draft. But for both of those guys, whatever mechanism we use, we’d like to keep these guys around for (2026) and beyond. So whether that’s doing the fifth-year option on these guys or extending them, one way or the other we’re planning to do that — we’d like to do that.

The Packers picked up the fifth-year option for Wyatt and declined it for Walker, which led many to believe they’d hammer out an extension for Walker instead. It never came to fruition — at least, not yet.

It’s hard to imagine what Walker displayed in 2025 gave Gutekunst a change of heart. Walker was consistent again, leading the team with 128 tackles and finishing second on the team with eight tackles for loss.

Getting Walker back in the mix for the foreseeable future gives the Packers a high-floor inside linebacker and a solid duo alongside Cooper.

It won’t break the bank to get a deal done, either. Spotrac estimates a market value of just over $8 million for Walker, with a projected contract of about three years and $24 million. Green Bay may have to shuffle things around, but it’s more than doable.

After being selected No. 22 overall in 2022, Walker has been good for the Packers but relatively unspectacular. There’s also a case to be made that he hasn’t shown significant improvement on the field. Walker’s four years have sometimes blended together. He has displayed great motor, but nothing that would make him an absolute must-have for the Packers. If there’s a bidding war for Walker this offseason, it’d be in the best interest of Green Bay to bow out.

On top of that, there are other options, albeit with no guarantee that either is better than Walker. Isaiah McDuffie has one year left on his deal, and the Packers used a third-round pick on Ty’Ron Hopper in 2024. However, they’ve buried Hopper on the depth chart since selecting him No. 91 overall.

Nobody is banging the drum for either. However, you know what you get in McDuffie, and Hopper could blossom if he finally gets his chance. Green Bay could also look to the draft dip to address a potential Walker exit.

Outside of his cost being driven up in free agency, there’s not a glaring reason as to why the Packers should be against bringing Walker back. At the same time, his good-but-not-great play doesn’t merit them pushing all their chips into the center of the table for him either. He’s in free-agent purgatory at the moment.

If Walker is back, great; the Packers keep him and Cooper together and hope for some marginal improvement in Year 5. If Walker is gone, they have a temporary placeholder in McDuffie and can take the training wheels off for Hopper.

The Quay Walker decision will be a fascinating one and will have a domino effect on what else the Packers can or can’t do in free agency.