We all remember the message back in January following the Green Bay Packers’ playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Typically, general manager Brian Gutekunst would go up to the podium a few days after the season concludes and dissect the year that was and look ahead to the first few months of the offseason, all in a somewhat reserved manner.
This time it sounded different.
Gutekunst talked about needing to show urgency, and the display he put on this offseason showed he wasn’t kidding.
I think, for me, the thing that’s been on my mind as we’ve concluded this season is we need to continue to ramp up our sense of urgency. These opportunities don’t come (very often). … We’ve got a bunch of good guys in that locker room, got a bunch of talented guys in that locker room, and yeah, I think it’s time that we start competing for championships, right?
That one quote filled many articles throughout the offseason. Gutekunst, normally buttoned up when addressing the media, was sending a message to the entire franchise, and he wasn’t making any exceptions for himself.
Championship talk isn’t surprising in the slightest, but the GM’s uncharacteristic bluntness was. So how did Gutekunst back up his own words?
Drafting Matthew Golden was a hell of a start. It’s no secret that the wide receiver corps didn’t see one player in the bunch take a gigantic leap forward in 2024. There’s an immense amount of talent shared among Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed, and Dontayvion Wicks, but the hope was that at least one would really take off last season and become a go-to option. It never happened.
Green Bay’s historical reluctance to draft a wide receiver in the first round was a long-standing complaint among the fan base. While Gutekunst frequently denied that there was some kind of institutional policy, he never went WR with a first-round pick himself.
Taking a wide receiver in the first round this April was a big deal, regardless of what anyone in the front office says. It was such a pleasant surprise that there was a story on the Packers website titled, “No joke, the Packers really did draft a receiver in the first round.” That one selection revealed a shift in how Gutekunst conducted business.
Then came the Micah Parsons deal.
Year after year, Gutekunst emphasizes the value of draft picks and Green Bay’s preference for accumulating as much draft capital as possible. Since he took over in 2018, there have been four Packers draft classes with at least 11 picks. The fewest in any class in Gutekunst’s tenure happened this April and in 2019, but Green Bay had two picks in the first round in 2019.
The trade for Parsons was bold. It was Gutekunst’s signature moment so far as general manager, perhaps even usurping his surprise decision to draft Jordan Love in 2020 or the Aaron Rodgers trade.
This move, though? To bring in a player entering the prime of his career at a premium position who’s tracking to be a Hall of Famer? To give up two first-round picks and Kenny Clark to get it done and then fork over a massive extension, making Parsons the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history? That’s a move by a general manager who vowed to start competing for championships.
And Gutekunst got that deal done with a bull-headed Jerry Jones.
It was a deal Gutekunst never thought would seriously come together until the last few days.
The chances of these things happening are pretty slim, and I think that was my mindset the whole time, was keep the conversations going because of the uniqueness of the player. But I don’t think it was really until the last few days that I actually thought, “Hey, there’s an opportunity here to close this thing out.”
Close it out, he did.
Gutekunst sent a loud and clear message back in January. No more being satisfied with playoff berths. No more coming up short in January on the road in the playoffs. Now it’s time to see if these moves are enough to get Green Bay back to the promised land. Gutekunst has certainly done his part.
