Green Bay Packers Make Easy Decisions on ERFAs

Bringing back these Exclusive Rights Free Agents are certainly easy decisions for the Green Bay Packers to make.

Early on Monday, the Green Bay Packers would make two free-agent signings in Christian Kirksey and Ricky Wagner to help provide some stability to the linebacker and right tackle positions. However, in addition to bringing in new players, the Packers also have to make some decisions on their own pending free agents.

While some decisions are certainly going to be more difficult than others, when it comes to Green Bay’s exclusive rights free agents (ERFA), well, those are easy.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, an exclusive rights free agent is a player with under three years of accrued NFL experience and can only be tendered a contract from their current team. And in most cases, these contracts are relatively cheap, costing anywhere from $500,000 to $700,000 typically for the year.

Green Bay has until 3 pm CT on Wednesday to make these decisions or the players can be picked up by other teams. And so far it has been reported that they have tendered contracts to Chandon Sullivan, Tyler Lancaster, Robert Tonyan and Jake Kumerow.

Of course, bringing these players back are certainly no-brainers. Sullivan played a much more prominent role as the season progressed and could be Green Bay’s starting slot corner in 2020. Tonyan has shown that he can make some big plays and that he is a willing blocker. Lancaster was a rotational player on the defensive line, and Kumerow once again flashed that big-play ability and he was a very good run blocker.

In addition to those four, Allen Lazard is an exclusive rights free agent as well and bringing him back is about as easy as it gets. Lazard emerged as the Packers’ No. 2 wide receiver over the course of the season and who knows, maybe Green Bay is working on a longer-term deal with him given how important he was in 2019. However, at this point, nothing has been announced.

Green Bay’s other two ERFA’s are Will Redmond who did struggle in coverage last season but was excellent on special teams. So given that factor along with his low-cost, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is brought back either.

And lastly is offensive lineman, John Leglue. I mean, there’s no such thing as too much depth on the O-line, so I wouldn’t rule out him returning to Green Bay to at least compete in Training Camp and the preseason.

As I mentioned above, at least when it comes to Lazard, Kumerow, Tonyan, Sullivan, and Lancaster, these decisions are about as easy as it gets at the NFL level.