The conventional wisdom around the Green Bay Packers this offseason is that the team is going to largely avoid getting into the market for any high-priced free agents. With several players likely to depart on big contracts and yield an impressive haul of compensatory draft picks in 2027, our expectation and that of others who cover the team is that Packers would be unlikely to sacrifice those relatively high picks by canceling out the departures with incoming free agents, particularly with the team in a bit of a salary cap bind for 2026.
However, the team has made a few notable moves to free up cap space over the last few days that aren’t just the bare minimum options — and that likely involve committing more time to certain players. Salary conversion for Xavier McKinney and Aaron Banks were on opposite ends of the expectation spectrum, with McKinney making perfect sense but Banks coming as a bit of a surprise with his less-than-spectacular play in year one with the team.
But those moves have made the team more than cap-compliant, even with the re-signing of Sean Rhyan, and the team still has the low-hanging fruit of Elgton Jenkins’ contract available to be trimmed. All told, it means that the Packers will have a bit more money to play with this spring than expected (provided that Jenkins and perhaps Rashan Gary are indeed moved), which could set up a bigger spending spree than fans had been counting on.
Still, would the Packers really offset a departing contract like those expected for the likes of Malik Willis, Rasheed Walker, and Romeo Doubs, who could all feasibly get the Packers a 4th-round or better compensatory draft pick? That seems unlikely. But the means are there to do it if the team decides they really do want to sacrifice one of those picks to bring in a high-priced veteran.
The answers to these questions will start to roll in this afternoon as free agent negotiations begin. Keep it locked here to Acme Packing Company for all of the Packers-related news throughout the next few days!