Packers looking to address tight end at trade deadline?

While all eyes are on the Green Bay Packers upgrading the wide receiver position before the NFL trade deadline, ESPN’s Dan Graziano reports that they could be looking to add to tight end instead.

"“Someone told me Monday not to be surprised if the Packers’ solution at receiver ended up being a tight end,” wrote Graziano."

Are the Green Bay Packers looking to address the tight end position at the trade deadline?

As of now, the Packers haven’t gotten a ton of pass-catching help from the tight end position this season. Josiah Deguara is on the field for only about 15% of the offensive snaps. Marcedes Lewis and Tyler Davis are primarily blockers. And Robert Tonyan has been reliable, but he’s also averaging just 8.4 yards per catch.

This is down nearly three yards from his 2020 and 2021 totals. Overall, we just haven’t seen the same impact from Tonyan down the seam as we have in the past, or in general, the same playmaking ability–although he hasn’t had many targets in that capacity either with an average depth of target of only 4.7 yards.

Having said that, my guess is that if the Packers did make an addition at tight end, that player would play along side of Tonyan, as they share the workload, not instead of.

Two names that Graziano mentioned as possible solutions were Mike Gesicki of the Miami Dolphins and Albert Okwuegbunam of the Denver Broncos.

Gesicki has caught 18 of 25 passes this season at 10.9 yards per catch with three touchdowns. Over his career, he has been reliable, catching 67% of his targets at 11.3 yards per PFF ($$). This is the final year of his current deal, and the Packers would have to pick up a prorated portion of his $10.93 million cap hit. To make the move worthwhile, it may require a long-term extension, which could be a challenge to pull off given the Packers future salary cap situation.

Over the Cap currently has the Green Bay Packers with $6.74 million in available cap space, and there really aren’t many cap-saving moves left at their disposal.

Okwuegbunam, meanwhile, has two years left on his rookie deal and comes with cap hits in 2022 and 2023 of just over $1 million. This is a move that makes more sense given his cap hits, experience, and the Packers tight end position being in-flux next season. This season, Okwuegbunam has been targeted only 10 times, but in 2021, he caught 33 of 40 passes for 330 yards and two touchdowns.

With that said, while Graziano mentioned these two players by name, he also wondered how each of these players would fit in Green Bay’s system, given their current issues with their respective teams. Gesicki plays in Miami under Mike McDaniel, another member of the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree. While Nathanial Hackett, obviously, coached under Matt LaFleur previously.

Without question, this Packers offense is in need of help, but I’m not sure there is a trade out there that would fix this team and turn them into contenders—let alone at the tight end position. Any sort of turnaround begins with cleaning up the little errors that are occurring far too often, which includes the wrong routes being ran, inaccurate passes, missed blocks, turnovers, penalties, misaligned players, and drops.

There is also the fact that the Packers’ name is mentioned quite a bit during this time of the year, but nothing ever seems to come to fruition.

For a team that appears closer to being in a rebuild than a Super Bowl contender, not giving away draft capital would seem like the prudent move to make.