The way Green Bay Packers fans are reacting to the 2026 free agency period, one might assume that the sky is falling in Titletown. You can check every NFL news outlet, and you won’t see a single “winners and losers” list with Green Bay in the plus column. After all, why would they be? They’ve lost starters like Romeo Doubs and Quay Walker and signed exactly zero players that the average NFL fan has heard of. So are the Packers setting themselves up for failure in 2026, or is there more to the story?
Why Aren’t the Green Bay Packers Making Big Moves in Free Agency?
The Green Bay Packers currently are near the top of the pile in available salary cap space. Doesn’t that mean they should be signing big names to even bigger deals? Shouldn’t Green Bay be making significant changes to the team in order to compete for the NFC North title next year?
Packers lose their WR1
Micah trade already causing havoc on their cap space smh hard to watch
— Brad Holmes Bulge (@BradHolmesBulge) March 10, 2026
The Packers have less players than they started the day with 😭
Someone explain to them how free agency works
— SleeperNFL (@SleeperNFL) March 10, 2026
All the Packers have done since the start of free agency is get significantly worse
— Blake (@SoldierFieldBlg) March 10, 2026
Firstly, there’s still a chance Green Bay makes some headline moves. Trey Hendrickson, many experts’ choice for the best free agent, is still unsigned. Other talented defenders like K’Lavon Chaisson and Bradley Chubb are also possibilities. But just because the Packers aren’t doing business with “best available” players yet doesn’t mean they aren’t handling their business.
Through two days of the legal tampering period, the Packers have returned Darian Kinnard and Sean Rhyan, the latter of whom will become the team’s full-time starter at center, added a third corner in Benjamin St. Juste for a relatively low price, and ensured the linebacker corps are still stocked by trading for Zaire Franklin. Despite how un-sexy these transactions are, the Packers are at the very least, maintaining their roster quality without foolishly overpaying to retain certain players.
Packers fans can bemoan the departure of Romeo Doubs, but what will Patriots fans be saying in four years when Doubs is 29 and has a cap hit of over $20 million? Quay Walker will be a loss, but let’s not forget, just one year ago, Walker was “struggling” to live up to his first-round billing, with some fans saying that he should be benched. Elgton Jenkins is admittedly a two-time Pro Bowler, but he’s also a 30-year-old with an injury history and one of the highest cap hits on the roster.
What’s far more significant than any of those moves are the moves Green Bay didn’t have to make. Last summer, they prevented premier tackle Zach Tom from hitting the open market in 2026 and signed him to a massive extension twelve months in advance. Inking Micah Parsons to a big extension as well meant the Packers are not threatened by any of the roster’s blue-chip players leaving this summer.
Between the team’s highest-profile departures (Jenkins, Walker, and Rashan Gary, who was traded to the Cowboys), Green Bay is losing exactly zero players who are among the league’s elite at their position. Meanwhile, the team already has pieces in place to fill most of these roles.
Do the Packers need to be one of the teams making drastic moves in order to hope to be competitive? Or are they already one of the most solidified teams in the conference looking to improve upon the margins? By no means can any NFL team afford to stand still and not look to improve, but Green Bay is in a position where high-risk moves aren’t required to improve the team heading into the 2026-27 season.
What Does “Winning” Free Agency Even Mean?
Two years ago, the Atlanta Falcons were being heralded as the big winners of free agency. After all, what wasn’t to love about the team signing MVP-candidate-level quarterback Kirk Cousins and also bringing in another exciting weapon in wide receiver Darnell Mooney? Surely this is still a true statement two years later.
Cousins and Mooney were both released earlier this year. This take could not have aged any worse.
Last year, the Seattle Seahawks had a “disastrous” free agency that caused “experts” to predict them to win no more than six games. Changing Geno Smith out for Sam Darnold was considered bad business, not to mention overpaying a player like Demarcus Lawrence, who was labeled an over-the-hill veteran who couldn’t stay healthy.
The Seahawks are reigning Super Bowl champs due to one of the most effective offseasons by an NFL team in recent memory. The experts could not have been more wrong.
The Ringer Pod believes the #Seahawks will finish in the bottom 5 in offense and last in the NFC West. They also gave a D+ for the offseason.
Here are some quotes that the podcast said:
“The Seahawks lost a top-10 [Geno Smith] quarterback.”
“The team will be the worst in the… pic.twitter.com/XRsZ1uyCBe
— HawkMania (@hawkmania4) May 27, 2025
Check the free agency grades for 2026. You’ll see the Tennessee Titans being lauded for splashing the cash on players like Wan’Dale Robinson, John-Franklin Myers, Alonte Taylor, and Cor’Dale Flott. Surely being called a “winner” by CBS Sports in March means that the Titans are going to be good next season.
Hint: probably not. The Titans have been top five in free agent spending in each of the past two seasons, and are probably still going to be one of the league’s worst outfits in 2026 even as they make it three straight years among the NFL’s top spenders.
The Titans are winning free agency, and I don’t think it’s close.
— SM Highlights (@SMHighlights1) March 9, 2026
The Carolina Panthers are being praised for their aggression by signing Jaelen Phillips to a 4-year, $120-million deal. They needed a pass rush, so spending all that money on a player like Phillips means that the problem should be solved, right?
Well, one of the few teams that had the same or fewer sacks than Carolina, the Arizona Cardinals, were the team that paid up for the most expensive edge player in last year’s free agent class, handing Josh Sweat $76 million.
In short; spending does not guarantee success.
As recently as last offseason, Packers fans clamored excitedly about the Nate Hobbs deal, totaling almost $50 million. One year after signing a player called “a real upgrade” to Eric Stokes, the team has already bitten the bullet, cutting the former Raider and pivoting to the much cheaper St. Juste.
Spending heaps of cash is not a requirement for improving an NFL roster.
NATE HOBBS
Packers Nation, you want a DOG at corner… WE GOT ONE!#GoPackGo
— Tazim Wajid Wajed (@TheSageHitman33) March 10, 2025
In the spring, the majority of NFL fanbases have some optimism for their team next year, and want to see that matched by ambitious roster moves. But not every team is able to or needs to do that. The media will praise those who spend lots of money or deal with the league’s big names. What they don’t praise is teams going about their business in a financially responsible manner with both the short-term and long-term health of the roster being cared for.
The Packers were preseason Super Bowl favorites last year thanks to making the biggest move of the 2025 offseason, aka trading for Micah Parsons. Just because they aren’t also trading for Maxx Crosby this season doesn’t mean they are going to take a step back in 2026. Instead, the team is making progress more subtely.
So What Are the Green Bay Packers Accomplishing This Offseason?
Here’s what Green Bay has actually done this offseason so far:
- Let a backup quarterback that they traded a 7th-round pick for two years ago walk out the door and net the team a valuable compensatory draft pick next year.
- Upgraded their starting center who is also ~$6 million cheaper per year than the previous one.
- Replaced an expensive departure at linebacker with a proven veteran who has had 170+ tackles in two of the past three years.
- Allowed expensive starters on offense to walk at positions where recent first-round picks are already on the roster to replace them.
Willis was inevitably going to be given another chance as a starting QB on another team, but the fact that Green Bay has been able to revitalize his career means they will be getting a 3rd- or 4th-round pick as a reward. Jenkins was long penned as a cap casualty even before the Rhyan deal. Walker was unlikely to return given his improvement last season, and, like many slightly above-average starters who hit free agency, was overpaid by a bad team that is desperate to get better (and probably won’t). When Rasheed Walker signs for a lot of money elsewhere, just as Doubs did, it means Jordan Morgan and Matthew Golden will be trusted to become full-time starters and expected to produce.
NFL roster building is not linear. It is a constant shuffle of improving on the margins. Managing a playoff-caliber team takes a lot of work, and in most instances, that work involves paying the right players the big bucks, adding cost-efficient free agent signings to offset departing talent, and developing draft picks into valuable players that contribute above their salary. Even if the Packers are not making dramatic improvements to the roster, it does not mean the team is setting themselves up for failure next year.
Are the Green Bay Packers Getting Worse?
Those criticizing Green Bay’s current offseason are pointing at the departures and saying the team is losing talent.
Roster decay is very real in Green Bay. You can debate the quality of the players lost, but…
Rashan Gary
Elgton Jenkins
Quay Walker
Malik Willis
Nate Hobbs
Kingsley Enagbare
Romeo Doubs
Rasheed Walker
Colby Wooden2026 team probably won’t be as talented as the 2025 team.
— Zach Kruse (@zachkruse2) March 10, 2026
How true is this statement actually?
Rashan Gary has spent the last 9 months proving that he deserves to be a cap casualty. Getting a 4th-rounder out of a player that prematurely announced their release on accident just days earlier counts as excellent business. St. Juste will almost certainly not be as bad as Hobbs and at the very least is much cheaper, allowing money to be spent at another position. An underwhelming rookie season for Golden does not mean he cannot live up to the hype and become a much better player than Doubs ever was.
Do the Packers still have work to do on the defensive line? Absolutely. Parsons can’t do it all alone, and Gary and Kingsley Enagbare represent 9.5 sacks that won’t be coming back next season. Trading Colby Wooden means that interior defensive line depth is practically nonexistent, which will need to be addressed. But with a healthy amount of cap space remaining and the 2026 Draft on the horizon, Green Bay will have the ability to add these necessary reinforcements.
Attrition bites every roster in the league. What good organizations like Green Bay do is stay ahead of the curve to ensure they field a competitive football team every single year. That’s why the Packers have made the playoffs 14 of the past 17 years. That’s why they’ll likely be a playoff team again next year too.
Winning and Losing Free Agency Means Nothing
In NFL history, the same teams “win” in March and April every single year, and they are the teams who, year after year, find themselves spending the most. The same organizations do this every single offseason, and remain at the bottom of the standings despite their spending. One of these teams is the team that threw $40 million at Quay Walker, who PFF considers a below-average starter.
Raiders signing LB Quay Walker. (via @TomPelissero, @Rapsheet) pic.twitter.com/eOtPon38tc
— NFL (@NFL) March 9, 2026
There’s also a group of organizations that are the same teams that “win” every December and January. These teams are pushing for division championships every year and are always a threat in the postseason. Green Bay lives in this second category.
Being called a loser in the spring, when the team’s starting quarterback is at his baby shower in a t-shirt, means nothing. What matters is if you become a winner in the winter, which is when Jordan Love will be back on the field with the ball in his hands ready to make another play in front of 80,000 fans.
When would you rather win?
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