Restructured contracts hint that Packers not waiting for 2025 to push in their chips

As one of the NFL's youngest teams, the Packers could wait until 2025 to make their big moves toward title contention. Instead, they seem ready and willing to push some chips in now.

By most estimations, the Green Bay Packers overachieved in 2023. Few believed that the transition from Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love would yield a playoff berth right off the bat, and many doubted whether the latter would emerge as a franchise quarterback at all. The Packers needed Love as well as the NFL's youngest roster to develop extremely quickly in order to reach the postseason, a big bet that seemed unlikely to cash.

However, Green Bay's wagers hit. Love played as well as any signal-caller in the league during the back half of the season while the sonograms that comprised his receiving corps developed into field tilters. Even Joe Barry's defense couldn't keep the Packers out of the playoff race. Now, following the Packers' beatdown of the Dallas Cowboys in the wild-card round and their near upset of the eventual NFC champion San Francisco 49ers the following week, they look well ahead of schedule.

All of which puts Green Bay's decision-makers in an interesting spot as the calendar turns to March. The promising 2023 campaign and Love's second-half surge in particular suggest the team could realistically contend as soon as this upcoming season. However, the defense will shift to an entirely new scheme and roster construction under new DC Jeff Hafley, a difficult project to complete in one year. Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst and head coach Matt LaFleur will have to balance the push and pull of those factors as they form their plans for free agency and the NFL draft.

It bears mentioning that what clubs believe internally and what they say to the public can vary greatly. Around this time of year, most express a desire to build aggressively in the offseason in order to contend immediately.

"I think (contending for the Super Bowl) always has been (the expectation). I don't think it ever left," Gutekunst said at his season-closing press conference last month. He reiterated that notion this week at the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine.

"I do. I do," Gutekunst said when asked this week if the Packers can win the Super Bowl this season, via The Athletic's Matt Schneidman. "Even last year -- I know where your question is -- there was so much change. I think the whole thought process of putting expectations on a team limits you. I had no idea where this team could go. I just wanted to see them grow and continue to get better and try to play our best football at the end. Matt did a phenomenal job of getting them there and the players did a great job, as well."

But a GM saying his team can compete for a title only means so much by itself. The club's decisions will usually reveal what the leadership actually thinks. So far, the Packers' moves suggest they truly believe they can reach the Super Bowl this season and will push chips into 2024 to help achieve that goal.