Green Bay Packers General Manager Brian Gutekunst’s first year on the job was Mike McCarthy’s last as Head Coach, a dreadful 9 loss season that missed the playoffs. It was a dreamy first three years teaming with his successor, Matt LaFleur, division titles, top seeds and deep post-season runs. Until another, unexpected 9 loss season that will have Gutekunst and the Packers watching the playoffs again.
The GM arrived in the Lambeau Field media auditorium for his season ending news conference just after 10:00 AM to explain what led to the disappointing 8-9 season, with a 3-1 start, a five game losing streak, a December resurgence and playoff destiny slipping out their own hands last Sunday when the Detroit Lions denied them the NFC’s final Wild Card.
Gutekunst was asked flat out, what went wrong? He said the team had so many moving parts with an unsettled offensive line, young wide receivers trying to fill the near impossible production void left by Davante Adams and the team never played complimentary football enough. He still believes in the organization, it’s a tough league, every year is new and he’s confident their process will have them rebound quickly.
After Gutekunst gave a quick summation of the season, reporters got right to the elephant in Lambeau, Aaron Rodgers.
And what of Jordan Love? Gutekunst said, “I definitely think he’s ready to play, he has a bright future.” Gutekunst wouldn’t say exercising the fifth year option on Love’s contract is a given. He said the league hasn’t established the 2023 salary cap figure yet and until that happens, discussions on contract adjustments or free agent spending will commence.
Gutekunst also touched on several prominent veterans.
David Bakhtiari – Expecting him back? “I would hope so.” Gutekunst said he cleared several medical hurdles this season, learned how to perform at a high level with limited practice time and when on the field, delivered at a high level.
Mason Crosby – “He had an outstanding year, really clutch.” Crosby worked with his third special teams coordinator in the past three years and carried the team at times. The Packers however, kept Ramiz Ahmed on the practice squad all year, activating him for a couple of games, they added Matt Ammendola to the practice squad late in the year and just added a fourth kicker, Parker White, a first year player out of South Carolina. Gutekunst said they want competition whether they decide to bring Crosby back or not. They decided to make sure a second kicker was under contract during the pandemic in case of a sudden positive test and they’ll want to continue that practice.
Aaron Jones – “We expect him back, he’s been a very dynamic player.” Jones will have a cap number of 20 million next year and pending the cap figures elsewhere on the roster, quarterback most notably, there’s been some speculation the popular back might to too expensive to keep.
Quay Walker – The number one draft choice was disqualified from games twice this season, despite encouraging play on the field. Gutekunst said, “We love Quay. He’s got a really bright future ahead of him.” The GM says the transgressions are unacceptable and he knows that but he handled last weekend’s incident the right way. He’ll have to grow from those incidents and Gutekunst believes he will.
Gutekunst said the entire upper management team, President and CEO Mark Murphy, Vice-President of Football Operations Russ Ball and LaFleur continue to have excellent dialogue over the daily process and future vision of the franchise.
It just appears a bit cloudier than usual from recent seasons.
