The 90 to 1 Green Bay Packers roster countdown: No. 12 – Blake Martinez

The NFL's leading tackler is looking at a big payday.

The Green Bay Packers, and their 90 players on the roster, are in the midst of their first training camp under coach Matt LaFleur. In an annual tradition from my 11 years at Packer Report, I rank the players in order of importance from No. 90 to No. 1. This isn’t just a listing of the team’s best players. Our rankings take into account talent, importance of the position, depth at the position, salary and draft history. More than the ranking, we hope you learn something about each player. (Note: The start of this series can be found with my former employer.)

No. 12: ILB Blake Martinez ($2,120,848 cap)

Over the last two seasons, Martinez has 286 tackles. That’s the most in the NFL, with Seattle’s Bobby Wagner a relatively distant second with 271 and Carolina’s Luke Kuechly an even more distant third with 255 tackles.

Martinez is entering his final season under contract. While he received a nice bump in salary from the league’s proven-performance escalator – the PPE increases the fourth-year salary of Day 3 draft picks if they meet playing-time thresholds during their first three seasons in the league – his salary still pales in comparison to the contract just signed by Wagner, a monster three-year, $54 million extension that included $40.2 million guaranteed. Martinez isn’t going to get that type of money but it’s a decent bet that the money saved by releasing Mike Daniels will wind up in Martinez’s pocket.

“Basically right now, my agent’s still dealing with everything and talking to them,” Martines said early in training camp. “Right now, for me, I’m just focused on football. When things growing in the talks, he’ll communicate with me. …

“Right now, I’m focused on the football aspect. I put in the right work this offseason to have 1,000 percent confidence in myself that I’m going to go out there and do even way better than I have been. My thing is just play football and when things pan out, whether I’m here or somewhere else or whatever ends up happening, it’s going to be there when it comes.”

Just how much money Martinez receives will be dependent on what he does this season. A fourth-round pick in 2016, Martinez tied for the NFL lead in 2017 with 144 tackles, by the league count. Using the Packers’ count, he had 158. In 2018, he finished second in the league with a matching 144 tackles. The coaches gave him 147 tackles. He added 12 stuffs (a tackle at or behind the line vs. the run; down from 14 in 2017), four passes defensed (down from 11) and zero turnover plays (down from four). His rates were 7.1 for tackles and 87.4 for stuffs, down from 6.2 and 69.9. Of 98 off-the-ball linebackers who played 20 percent of the run snaps, he finished 76th in ProFootballFocus.com’s run-stop percentage, which essentially measures impact tackles (a first-and-10 tackle for a gain of 3 is a stop, for instance; a gain of 4 is not a stop). He was 31st in 2017. While he had a career-five sacks, by our count, he missed an unsightly 20 tackles.

So, Martinez had a good season but not a great season. Part of that was becoming a dad and the impact that had on his training. He amped up his training in the offseason. He said he traded eight pounds of fat for 15 pounds of muscle, cutting his body fat to 3.5 percent in the process.

“(I’m) not messing around this year. Last year, I wasn’t happy,” he said.

The next step is using his bigger body to make more big plays. In three seasons, he has created only five turnover plays (one forced fumble, two fumble recoveries and two interceptions). Over that span, 25 linebackers have at least 250 tackles. Martinez is tied for 19th with one forced fumble and tied for 16th with his five total turnovers. He got off to a good start in camp with an interception and a forced fumble the first three days.

“I think for us,” Martinez said, “my biggest thing that I’ve been reiterated to guys: ‘We talk about being special, we talk about being great, but what are we going to every single play to allow us to get there?’ Because if we’re not doing those little things and we’re just talking about it and saying, ‘Oh, yeah, we can do it,’ it’s not going to happen.”