The Green Bay Packers has already re-signed two of their top five free agents, giving a two-year contract to linebacker Isaiah McDuffie and a three-year deal to kicker Brandon McManus. The other three players, who are still set to hit free agency, are center Josh Myers, defensive tackle TJ Slaton, and cornerback Eric Stokes.
But those decisions can be made after the Packers let them test the market and see what their value truly is. Before that, though, there are still seven minor decisions to make—and six of them are fairly easy.
These are players with two or fewer accrued seasons in the NFL. And keeping them is easy. The Packers just have to apply an ERFA tender, which is the minimum salary. It might be $840k, $960k, or $1.03 million depending on the experience of the player in the NFL.
By far the most likely outcome is that the Packers will re-sign all of their exclusive-rights free agents: safety Zayne Anderson, wide receiver Bo Melton, defensive end Arron Mosby, tackle Kadeem Telfort, punter Daniel Whelan, and running back Emanuel Wilson.
For the salary they are slated to get, all are no-brainers as depth pieces—and Whelan, as the starting punter.
Mosby is probably the player projected to have the smaller role among this group, but he was still a decent rotational piece as an edge defender after the Packers traded Preston Smith away at the trade deadline.
The most curious decision is tight end John FitzPatrick. With three accrued seasons in the NFL, he’s a restricted free agent. But for the Packers to keep it this way, they need to place an RFA tender on him.
The cheapest one is the rights of first refusal (ROFR), but it still comes at a relatively hefty price, $3.263 million. That seems like too much for FitzPatrick, a tight end four on the roster.
- Rights of first refusal: $3.263 million
- Original round tender: $3.406 million
- 2nd-round tender: $5.346 million
- 1st-round tender: $7.458 million
If the Packers apply a tender, they will have the rights to match any offer sheet that FitzPatrick eventually signs elsewhere. If it’s only the ROFR, there’s no compensation if the Packers don’t match it. If Green Bay uses the other tenders, the compensation is equivalent—in the case of the original round tender, FitzPatrick would generate a sixth-round pick.
However, as the tenders are significant, the Packers might not apply any tender. In this case, FitzPatrick becomes an unrestricted free agent and is available to sign with anyone.
Then, the Packers could re-sign him for less money. They did exactly that with cornerback Robert Rochell last offseason. But if the player signs with another team, the Packers wouldn’t receive any type of compensation—he wouldn’t even count towards the compensatory pick formula.
Those are procedural moves the Packers have to take care of before the bullets really start to fly next week. Brian Gutekunst and Russ Ball have a lot of work to do.