Brian Gutekunst took a big swing three years ago, but he’s still looking for a home run.
Three years ago today, the Green Bay Packers traded Davante Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders.
It was as inevitable as it was disappointing. There’s an alternate universe not too different from our own where Adams was a key part of the transition from Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love, shepherding Love into a new phase of his career while putting the finishing touches on his quest to become the Packers’ all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. Go look at the career leaderboards sometimes — Adams really was that close.
But due to a rift that opened between Adams and the Packers prior to the 2021 season, that alternate future never became a reality. Instead, it was Adams and Aaron Jones joking about giving Russ Ball (and not Brian Gutekunst, curiously) a call to get a deal done during training camp, only for no deal to ever materialize, save for the one that made Adams a Raider.
Today, Adams is on his third team post-Packers, having joined the Jets and now the Rams after leaving Green Bay, while the Packers struggle to replace him, either with an individual or in the aggregate. And to be fair, it may have been the right call to move on from Adams, but the real problem is that Gutekunst has yet to find a suitable solution at wide receiver after Adams left.
And by that same token, Gutekunst really hasn’t replaced any of the Thompson-era stars yet — at least, not with the same success his predecessor did when taking over as the Packers’ general manager.
You could largely define Gutekunst’s tenure as general manager as one of decline in Green Bay. Since he became the Packers’ GM, he’s spent most of a decade transitioning away from the Thompson-era stars that made the Packers great for most of the 2010s — while failing to replace them with comparable stars. Gutekunst’s tenure has been mostly defined by who the Packers have traded or cut — Aaron Rodgers, Davante Adams, Aaron Jones, and David Bakhtiari, to name a few — rather than who he’s cultivated.
And again, to be fair to Gutekunst, some of those moves were the right call. Rodgers’ time in Green Bay had run its course. Bakhtiari’s body was done. The Adams move was salvaging a broken relationship — albeit one that the Packers’ general manager had played a part in breaking.
But Gutekunst is now heading into his eighth season on the job. By the same point, Thompson had drafted Aaron Rodgers, Nick Collins, Clay Matthews, B.J. Raji, every single one of the pass catchers from that iconic Sports Illustrated cover, T.J. Lang, Josh Sitton, and Bryan Bulaga. He had hired Mike McCarthy. He had won a Super Bowl.
And he’d made plenty of tough calls of his own. In his first year and a half as general manager, Thompson moved on from Pro Bowl guards Marco Rivera and Mike Wahle, cut All-Pro safety Darren Sharper, and traded wide receiver Javon Walker. And he bounced back from all of those moves, too — the second-round pick he got for Walker is the easiest one-to-one example, since he immediately turned that pick into Greg Jennings.
Thompson started his tenure at a much lower point than Gutekunst, so perhaps it was easier to hit early home runs. But the fact is, he did it — and he hit at a much higher rate in the same window than Gutekunst has.
Gutekunst, as we all know, has had no problems making the hard calls. But he hasn’t had the same success as Thompson in the crucial follow-up to those tough decisions, and the Packers have struggled accordingly. He’s had his successes, but they’ve come with caveats, too. Jaire Alexander was a solid first pick, but injuries have destroyed his career and he looks like he’s on his way out of town. Elgton Jenkins has rejuvenated his career after his 2021 ACL injury, but the Packers have now shifted him to center, a position that perhaps least maximizes his best attributes. Rashan Gary has had bright moments, but he seems to have peaked as a solid number-two pass rusher.
The Packers have been in the bottom half of the NFC North in two of the last three seasons and had obvious weaknesses coming into this offseason. So far, Gutekunst has yet to address any of them. The Packers’ pass rush still looks just as weak as it did at the end of last season, and it’s hard to imagine any pass rusher available where the Packers will be picking making a big enough impact to turn that unit around. Their wide receivers still look perilously thin — we’re an injury to one player away from a corps featuring Malik Heath in a prominent role.
There’s a lot of offseason yet to go, and they could have another home-run draft — right now, it looks like they’ll need one. But the main reason they’ll need one is because their general manager’s bold plans have yet to yield comparably compelling solutions.
The Packers are at a vulnerable point in their team development. Next year’s cap picture is murky, and many of the young players Gutekunst has put in place are already close to free agency or in need of an extension. This should be the point where the Packers are among the rising contenders in the NFC, if not the NFL. Instead, they’re facing an offseason of uncertainty, potentially one of their own making.
The Packers didn’t just stumble into this position. They were led here. Now, three years after the trade that sent Davante Adams to the Raiders, the gap that remains between the Packers and the NFC’s elite remains one of their own making, and a symbol of their post-Rodgers decline.