Green Bay Packers GM Brian Gutekunst addressed the media earlier this week at the NFL Scouting Combine. While Gute addressed many issues, one of the more surprising comments he made concerned the future of defensive end Rashan Gary.

Most experts viewed Gary as a likely cap casualty shortly after the new league year starts in a few weeks. Remember, the Packers currently sit above the salary cap and need to free up space in order to sign free agents and even their 2026 draft class. But Gutekunst seemed to indicate that he expected Gary back in green and gold in 2026 despite his high salary and the drastic reduction in his productivity in the second half of last season.

Last season, Gary was expected to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the addition of Micah Parsons. The logic was that if Parsons was being double teamed and getting most of the attention from opposing offenses, Gary would face more single coverage and would have more opportunities to make plays as a result. That didn’t hold up over the full 2025 season.

Gutekunst responded to a direct question about Gary and his future with the team. He claimed that even in the second half of the season, Gary was an “impactful” player. “Sometimes, there is an ebb and flow with production with sacks,” Gutekunst explained. “He [Gary] was impactful towards the second half of the season. Maybe not as much as the first, but he was impactful.”

The numbers certainly don’t seem to back up Gutekunst’s claim. After recording 7.5 sacks in the first seven games, Gary failed to record a sack for the rest of the season. His final sack of the year came on October 26th in the Packers win over the Steelers in Pittsburgh.

Gary also failed to record a tackle for loss in the second half of the 2025 campaign after recording seven in the first half of the season. The only statistic that improved in the second half of the season was pressure rate. That increased slightly from 12.2 percent to 14.9 percent. That is the closest that Gutekunst’s arguments can come to being considered accurate.

Gary’s snap counts also went down in the second half of the season. Over the first eight games, Gary was on the field for roughly 65.5 percent of the Packers defensive snaps. Over the final eight games, that number dropped to 59.6 percent.

You would expect that Gary’s play count would have gone up after Parsons suffered his season-ending injury against the Broncos as the Packers needed Gary and the other edge rushers on the team to step up and raise their level of play. But in those two games (Gary sat out the season finale vs Minnesota), Gary was on the field for just 51.2 percent of defensive snaps.

The other things that upset many fans was what appeared to be a lack of effort and hustle on Gary’s part late in the season. His work ethic had never been questioned before, but in the second half of this season, he seemed to be on cruise control far too often. Even Parsons seemed to allude to this after the season although he did not explicitly mention Gary by name.

The Packers must also consider that Parsons may not be ready to start the 2026 season on Week 1 as he rehabs from his torn ACL. He could also be on a play count early in the season as he works his way back from the surgery. Would the Packers need to keep Gary around to make sure the team has enough proven talent at the position?

As of now, Gary has a 2026 salary of $19.5 million and carries a cap hit of a little more than $28.02 million. That’s a very high number for a player who failed to record a sack or a tackle for loss in the second half of the season.

The Packers have four options. The first is to let Gary play under his current contract. That makes little sense with the team’s need to free up cap space before the start of the league year.

The second option is to release the former Michigan star outright. Letting Gary go could save the team almost $11 million in 2026 but it also creates a dead cap hit for 2026 (or 2026 and 27 if they designate him post June 1st).

The third option would be to restructure Gary’s contract to reduce the 2026 cap hit. That kicks the can down the road and may allow Gary to play at a more reasonable cap hit in this coming season, but eventually, the payment comes due.

They could also try to trade Gary, but that may depend on what the team could get in return and if there are any takers.

Obviously, Gutekunst won’t come out and publicly bad mouth his players to press. But this particular defense of Gary just rang hollow. If he stays in Green Bay next season, the Packers need a better performance from Gary. We’ll know soon how Gutekunst decides to handle the situation.