Russ Ball and the Green Bay Packers will have to perform some salary cap gymnastics over the next couple of years if they plan on carving out space to make significant moves, many of which will come in the form of contract extensions.
One way to get some flexibility will come via cap casualties. Unfortunately, Rashan Gary will likely fall into that category.
There’s no way to sugarcoat Gary’s performance in 2025; it was flat-out dreadful, and he was nearly invisible for the second half of the season. On October 26, Gary sacked Aaron Rodgers twice in Green Bay‘s Sunday Night Football victory. It was not only the last sack of the season for Gary, but also the last time he made a tackle of an opposing player behind the line of scrimmage.
Rashan Gary went the final 10 games of the season, including the playoff loss, without a single sack or tackle for loss. It was unfathomable after Gary piled up 7.5 sacks in the first seven games of the season.
It wasn’t all because of the Micah Parsons injury, either. After his two-sack outing against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Gary played six full games and half of another with Parsons in the lineup and didn’t sniff a sack or tackle for loss. Gary looked sluggish and slow to the punch. Jeff Hafley adjusted as the season went along.
Lukas Van Ness and Kingsley Enagbare outsnapped Gary in Green Bay’s Wild Card Round affair in Chicago. It was the same story in Week 17. Gary’s snaps rapidly declined starting in Week 14.
Gary’s lack of snaps was strictly performance-based because there’s no way the Packers wanted to see Gary, who had a $25 million cap hit in 2025 and has two years left on his deal, watching from the sidelines as better-performing players swiped his reps.
It wasn’t just a random dry spell for Gary. He looked the part of a player in decline who did not have the same burst as in his early seasons. Heck, even late in the season, when Green Bay’s then-defensive coordinator was asked about what was going on with Gary, Hafley scrambled to come up with a productive answer.
Again, and I say this truthfully, Rashan is playing the run game — and I know you don’t want to hear about the run right now — (but) Rashan is playing the run game way better than he did last year, in my opinion. All right?
We’re not getting many drop-back passes. We’re getting seven-man, six-man play-action protections, where it’s about rushing and converting. And a lot of times you’ve got a tight end and a tackle on you, you’ve got a tackle and a (running) back on you. So at the same time, he’s not getting as many opportunities, right?
Sounds like a coach who didn’t want to ruin any of the diminishing confidence that Gary may have been clinging onto. Piling on in a press conference wouldn’t have helped matters, and Hafley knew that. As for the opportunities Gary wasn’t getting because of what the opposition was doing? Hafley took away more of those opportunities, and rightfully so, as the season dragged along because Gary wasn’t delivering.
Rashan Gary is set to make close to $20 million next year, and the Packers could save close to $11 million if they release him. In no world does it make any sense for Green Bay to make that financial commitment to a player who disappeared for 10 games in a row to finish the season.
There’s a world in which the Packers could approach Gary about taking a significant pay cut, but it seems unlikely the two sides could reach a mutually beneficial agreement. It would have to be a massive pay cut, and it wouldn’t make sense for Gary, since there’d likely be at least one suitor willing to take a bigger financial gamble on him.
It might be a little different if Green Bay remained bullheaded about keeping him in the lineup with a starter’s workload. That wasn’t the case, though. The Packers showed they were willing to swallow the tough pill of paying a near top-of-the-market rate for a defensive end better suited to play in a reserve role.
The Packers can release Gary, save some money, and find someone with just as much production for far cheaper.
For Rashan Gary, maybe a fresh start could lead to a recharge of the batteries and better results. One thing that is certain: There’s no chance Gary is back in 2026 on his current deal, and it’s highly unlikely he’s back with the Packers at all.
