Gutekunst’s Masterful Rebuild Has Packers Among Super Bowl Contenders Again

In no time at all, Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst has rebuilt the team into one that appears capable of winning the Super Bowl.

Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst. / Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin /

GREEN BAY, Wis. – During a 13-year run as Green Bay Packers general manager, Ted Thompson won two NFL Executive of the Year awards.

If the Packers cement their status as long-term Super Bowl contenders this season, current Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst would be worthy of winning his first.

In 2022, when Aaron Rodgers trudged off Lambeau Field a loser in the finale against the up-and-coming Detroit Lions, the Packers seemed years removed from being taken seriously.

Instead, in Year 1 of what appeared to be a challenging rebuild, they finished mere minutes from reaching the NFC Championship Game.

How? Because Gutekunst aced just about every pivotal move.

Gutekunst’s decision to trade Rodgers to the New York Jets last offseason was seismic. Rodgers made the Packers championship contenders every year, no matter the team’s other issues.

Instead, the Packers dove head-first into the quarterbacking unknown with Jordan Love.

A controversial first-round pick in 2020, Love didn’t play a single snap as a rookie. In 2021, he performed poorly in his first career start, an ugly loss at the Kansas City Chiefs. In 2022, he was sharp in 10 snaps in relief of Rodgers at Philadelphia, but the Eagles held two-score leads for both of Love’s possessions so were happy to trade completions for time.

With that scant resume, Gutekunst bet it all.

Had Love bombed, it would have been career suicide. Never mind his tenure as Packers general manager, which included trips to NFC Championship Games in 2019 and 2020 and an unprecedented streak of 13-win seasons in 2019, 2020 and 2021. His future as a high-ranking NFL executive would have been over. With a career resume headlined by trading a Hall of Fame quarterback and promoting a first-round bust, Gutekunst would have been toxic.

Through nine games last year, Love out of 34 qualifying quarterbacks ranked 27th in passer rating, 33rd in completion percentage and 34th in interceptions. The Packers were 3-6 and going nowhere fast.

Gutekunst didn’t panic.

“There’s expectations around here,” he said at the trade deadline, when the Packers were 2-5 and on a four-game losing streak. “Not winning’s not fun for anyone. So, everybody’s frustrated but, at the same time, I think no one’s stopped working and they’ve stayed together. That’s important for us. …

“To me right now, it’s really looking at the small victories, the small improvements and making sure we’re moving forward. If that doesn’t, if that stops happening, then there’s problems. But right now, I think we’re seeing little things.”

Small victories became a lot of victories. As awful as Love’s numbers were during the first half of the season, they were as spectacular in the second half. Of 33 qualifying quarterbacks over the final eight games, Love was second in passer rating, third in completion percentage and first in interceptions as the Packers went 6-2.

Not only was Gutekunst right about Love, he was right about how he built around Love.

Rather than give his first-year starting quarterback a reliable veteran receiver to serve as a security blanket, Gutekunst rolled with what probably was the youngest group of pass catchers in NFL history. The receivers were all part of the 2022 or 2023 NFL Draft class. The pure tight ends were all part of the 2023 draft class.

“We haven’t had the results we wanted,” Gutekunst said. “We’d like the results to come fast, don’t get me wrong, but, at the same time, the things that they’re going through are important and they’re going through them. How we come out the other side remains to be seen, but I have a lot of confidence in the group and the guys that are coaching them. I think we’re all excited to see where we can go this last 10 games.”

The last 10 games became the last 12, with the Packers shockingly reaching the playoffs and blowing out the Dallas Cowboys before losing by three points to the San Francisco 49ers.

Trading Rodgers didn’t just create a hole on the roster, it created a larger hole on the salary cap. The trade left behind a residual $40.3 million salary-cap hit. To accommodate, Gutekunst and his salary-cap sidekick, Russ Ball, cleared about $50 million in cap space through various machinations.

Nonetheless, the Packers were so cap-poor last year that Gutekunst couldn’t really afford to address any of the team’s weaknesses. Even had he wanted to, there was no money to sign a legitimate veteran receiver.

None of the team’s additions in free agency – long snapper Matthew Orzech and safeties Jonathan Owens and Tarvarius Moore – signed for much more than the league minimum. In fact, their free-agent additions received a combined $2.94 million in guaranteed money. The Los Angeles Rams’ free agents received $3.87 million guaranteed; every other team beat the Packers by about $11.5 million. The league median, according to Sportrac, was $49.7 million.

And yet, despite trading their legendary quarterback and relying on the youngest roster in the NFL, the Packers won 10 games.

Fast forward to today, with the start of training camp 23 days away and the 2024 regular season set to kick off in Brazil against the Philadelphia Eagles in 69 days, the Packers’ future is blindingly bright.

Love is viewed as one of the top young quarterbacks in the NFL.

The Packers might have the deepest receiver corps in the NFL.

They might have the best tandem of young tight ends.

Young players are cheap players. For a rapid rebuild, Gutekunst needed to assemble a couple high-quality draft classes. Thanks in part to the assets acquired in the Rodgers trade, Gutekunst nailed the 2022 and 2023 drafts.

Those powerhouse classes formed a powerful nucleus, to which Gutekunst added five players with Top 100 picks in this year’s draft. All that young and inexpensive talent allowed Gutekunst to make a rare splash in free agency. A year after settling on Owens, Gutekunst signed the best safety on the market, Xavier McKinney, to anchor the defense.

Having taken their salary-cap medicine last year, the Packers as of Saturday were $29.99 million under the cap, according to the NFLPA. That’s the seventh-most cap space in the league, even while swallowing almost $50 million in dead money, the financial fallout from releasing David Bakhtiari and Aaron Jones, among other transactions.

While Love’s forthcoming contract extension will take a big bite out of that apple, a contract extension for defensive tackle Kenny Clark would recoup a big chunk of the money.

That’s a lot of cap space to help keep the core intact for an extended championship window.

Having fallen short of the playoffs in 2022, the Packers were in a world of hurt.

Having traded Rodgers in 2023, the Packers were in a world of mystery.

With Gutekunst making the right moves, the Packers appear close to turning their world into Titletown once more.

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