Green Bay Packers: Addressing Tackle was a Need, Now it’s a Must

With the Green Bay Packers widdling away at the salary cap as they work to get under whatever that projected number may end up being, as Brian Gutekunst put it recently, a lot of “tough decisions” will have to be made this offseason. And on Friday, one of those decisions included cutting Rick Wagner.

Now, I’m not surprised that the Green Bay Packers cut Wagner to create an additional $4.25 million in cap space, but I certainly saw the value in hanging on to him as well.

Despite his rough NFC Championship performance, Wagner finished the regular season as the eighth-ranked offensive tackle by ESPN’s pass-blocking win rate metric, and he was the 25th highest graded tackle by Pro Football Focus ($).

But regardless of whether or not Wagner was brought back, addressing the tackle position was always on the to-do list this offseason. Both for added depth in 2021, but also for finding the right tackle of the future for 2022 and beyond. However, now without Wagner, finding a tackle has become a must–especially early on in the draft.

With David Bakhtiari still recovering from his ACL injury, he is likely to miss the start of the new season. So perhaps Green Bay decides to go with Billy Turner at left tackle again, but then who is the right tackle?

Current on the roster options include Yosh Nijman or Jon Runyan, but we have no clue what the Packers have in Nijman at this point, and at the NFL level, Runyan is best suited to be a guard. They could also start Jenkins at any one of the tackle positions until Bakhtiari returns, but there is no margin for error at that point when it comes to injuries, and Simon Stepaniak is then a likely starter at guard–again, another question mark.

The only other true tackle on this team at the moment — outside of Bakhtiari and Turner — is Nijman and any other movement, such as starting Jenkins at tackle, weakens the interior offensive line. Not to mention that, as I already alluded to, we don’t know Turner’s future beyond this season as Green Bay can get out of his contract in 2022, which again leaves a hole to fill at the tackle position.

Now, Green Bay could turn to free agency for a low-cost veteran, but step one before that can happen is getting under the salary cap. And while bringing in a free agent would certainly help, it again is short term solution that likely doesn’t address the need past this season. It just kicks the can down the road, as they say.

The best course of action is the draft, which fortunately for Green Bay is rich with offensive tackle talent this year. However, given the need, they’ll have to be fairly aggressive in trying to land someone early who could potentially start right away.

Having said that, teams never want to enter the draft thinking, “I have to select this position right away.” This leads to over-drafting, and that’s how busts happen. But in the Packers’ case, offensive tackle absolutely has to be front of mind, and the earlier, the better.

Once Green Bay takes their first tackle, don’t be surprised if they add a second or even a third, as we’ve seen them do in recent years with other positions. Under Ted Thompson in 2017, the Packers selected three running backs. Then in 2018, Gutey took three receivers, and in 2020, he took three interior offensive linemen.

Given the lack of depth on the roster, if Green Bay does decide to triple-dip on a position again, tackle is certainly in play–especially considering that they have 10 draft picks. But at this stage of the game, I’d mark them down for at least two.

Having to address the tackle position this offseason is nothing new, and it’s something that was on the radar of most Green Bay Packers fans. But in light of moving on from Rick Wagner, addressing that need has gone from something the Packers should do to something that they must do.