Green Bay Packers Re-Sign or Let Go & Prediction: De’Vondre Campbell
By Paul Bretl
Navigating the financial and personnel decisions that fill this offseason for the Green Bay Packers will be a challenging task for Brian Gutekunst and Russ Ball. Among those personnel decisions are 14 unrestricted free agents that the team has to make decisions on.
In this new series, Re-sign or Let Go & Prediction, I will be taking a look at each unrestricted free agent, laying out why the Packers should re-sign that player, why they should let them walk, and at the end, I’ll make a prediction.
If you’ve missed any of the previous articles, you can find them here.
Why the Green Bay Packers could re-sign De’Vondre Campbell
De’Vondre Campbell gave the Green Bay Packers something that they haven’t had in a very long time–elite play from the linebacker position.
Essentially pick a key category among linebackers, and there is a good chance that Campbell ranked near the top last season. By PFF’s grading system, Campbell was the second-best linebacker in 2021, with only Micah Parsons finishing ahead of him.
In solo tackles, Campbell ranked sixth among linebackers, and his four missed tackles were the fewest. He would also log 53 stops — also known as plays that result in a “loss” for the offense, according to PFF — which was the fourth-most out of all linebackers, and the 6.8 yards per catch allowed was the second-fewest.
I know Week 18 against Detroit didn’t mean anything, and there was certainly some vanilla defensive play-calling from the Packers, but we really saw how Campbell’s absence impacted the Green Bay defense. According to PFF ($$), Jared Goff would complete 15 of his 16 passes over the middle of the field for 146 yards and a touchdown. We also saw the Lion receivers have success after the catch.
In short, Campbell was a legitimate three-down linebacker for this Green Bay Packers defense, and he thrived being Batman when in previous defensive schemes, he was asked to be Robin. The end result was Campbell being named a first-team All-Pro.