The Packers Believe They’re Contenders

I spent a lot of time this offseason writing about national takes on the Packers’ offseason.

There seems to have been a consensus among national writers, or at least among the national takesmiths, that the Packers’ offseason was a disaster. I read numerous pieces about how much talent the Packers had lost, how they failed to replace it, and how that means they’re sunk for this coming year.

Most of that seems flatly untrue, or at least possible to defeat as an argument by just saying “we’ll see.” Because that’s always the case, isn’t it? Nobody really knows how anyone’s offseason has gone until we see the results on the field, and we won’t see those results for months yet. Did the Packers really have a bad offseason? Well, I guess we’ll see.

But that criticism aside, I think the Packers had exactly the offseason they wanted to have, more or less. Which is to say, they had an offseason that supports their belief that they were prepared to compete for a Super Bowl last year and they’re expecting to do the same this year.

You know the story of the Packers’ 2025 season. It fell apart down the stretch as the team itself seemed to disintegrate. The injury list speaks for itself: Tucker Kraft, Micah Parsons, and Zach Tom, are just the headlines, but plenty of other players were dinged up or lost entirely as the season wore on, and all that culminated in the Packers’ shorthanded loss to the Bears in the wildcard round.

To hear national writers tell it, the Packers responded to that reality by jettisoning half their team. But if you paid any kind of attention, you could easily see the plan behind their moves.

The Packers cut ties with Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks because the “no number one receivers” era was over; they wanted to trim down their wide receiver room and did so by giving extensions to their two most explosive pass catchers and clearing the way for their 2025 first round pick to take on a bigger role.

They moved on from Elgton Jenkins because he was old and injured and expensive and disgruntled after spending a year lightly grousing about his position switch. Wouldn’t you have done the same?

They traded Rashan Gary because the Cowboys were willing to give them a fourth round pick for a player who (how to say this gently?) rode Micah Parsons’ coat tails for half a season and then disappeared entirely after Parsons went down.

They let Quay Walker head to Las Vegas because he was a poor fit for their defensive philosophy. Walker even said as much (though in a bit more of a complaint-oriented fashion) in his introductory press conference with the Raiders, talking obtusely about his poor fit and usage in Green Bay.

And they cut Nate Hobbs because he was rarely healthy last year and was bad when he was. It’s not any more complicated than that, and we need not pretend otherwise. Even when he was healthy, he only cracked 20 snaps in a game once after Week 7, and that was for a Packers’ team whose secondary was often the main culprit in late-game collapses.

To account for these losses, the Packers are banking on their 2026 first round pick, which they flipped to the Cowboys last year for Micah Parsons. I know I’m playing a bit fast and loose here, but really, it’s not fair to count the Packers’ lack of a first round pick this spring against them if they already used that first round pick to acquire Parsons. What are the odds you’re going to land a Hall of Fame-track player in the late first round, anyway? Surely that should factor into an assessment of their offseason, right? Yet it rarely seems to.

More to the point, the Packers will rely on draft picks Brandon Cisse, Chris McClellan, and (to a lesser extent) Dani Dennis-Sutton to make up for whatever deficiencies the defense had last year, in addition to the services of free agent signings Javon Hargrave and Benjamin St-Juste. All of these moves directly address weaknesses the Packers had last year, and all fit with the overall plan of remaining contenders for this season.

The Packers essentially operated exactly as you’d expect this offseason. Yes, it was quiet. So what? They cut dead wood, shored up weaknesses as they could, and refined and refocused their offensive approach. They’re clearly sending the message that they know what went wrong last year: their team fell apart at the most critical points, and they’ve added talent to compensate.

Will it work? I’d say we’ll see, but that would put me behind everyone decrying their offseason with certainty. Instead, how about we say it looks like they’re headed in the right direction: right back to contender status — which is where they believed they’d be all along.