Brian Gutekunst has had an interesting tenure as the Packers GM. He brought in Matt LaFleur to help get the Aaron Rodgers era back on track. That worked, and he still made the decision to spend a 1st round pick on Jordan Love.

He’s made big free agent signings, first the “Smith Brothers” and Adrian Amos, then Josh Jacobs and Xavier McKinney. He’s shown a willingness to move up and down the draft board as needed (with mixed results) and he managed to navigate the transition from Rodgers to Love about as well as anyone could ask.

Most of the national media would tell you that Brian Gutekunst is a good to great GM. While I believe that sentiment is shared by more Packers fans than not, there is definitely a group of detractors that get louder each passing year that comes and goes without a Super Bowl.

“There are limits to what you can do, but we’d like to be really aggressive. See if we can be in every conversation,” Gutekunst said. “Whether that leads us to signing a bunch (of players) or not, we’ll see. We’d like to be as aggressive as we can to try and improve our football team.”

This was Gutekunst in 2018 at his first combine as GM. He said something similar when asked about the team potentially pursuing Jonathan Taylor in the 2023 offseason.

“In every conversation” has become something of a meme in the fanbase, both positive and negative.

The anti-Gute crowd will point to it and say that being in every conversation doesn’t mean anything when it feels like the team never actually pulls the trigger.

Others will point to some of the names the team has been linked with during Gutekunst’s tenure: OBJ, Will Fuller, Chase Claypool, Darren Waller and point out how badly those players did when they went somewhere else. Sometimes the best move is the one you don’t make they’d argue.

That the Packers have been a good team under Gutekunst is inarguable.

The question now is how does Green Bay take that final step?

Packers Offseason Wishlist

This team won 11 games last year, and lost several by only a few points. What can they do to change that?

  1. 1. Sign three free agents. The last time Gutekunst had real cap space, he brought in Preston and Zadarius Smith, Adrian Amos, and Billy Turner. This year, I’m hoping for something similar. Go get a pass rusher, a wide receiver and a corner. This frees you up to really go into the draft with best player available in mind.

2. Trade for Maxx Crosby. Will this happen? Probably not. But Crosby takes a good defense and potentially pushes them to a championship level

3. Trade back in the draft. This for me is contingent on the first two things happening, but in a world where they do, Green Bay is back to a much tighter cap situation moving forward. Trading back in the draft to give the team more chances at a cheap starting talent which becomes a requirement when a team no longer has cap room.

This team is on the cusp. Its up to the GM now to find the right moves to make that last step. So to quote Kevin Greene, “It is time”. Lets start competing for championships again.