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A lot of people are asking you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears these days. Apparently, Brian Gutekunst is among them.
In his wide ranging press conference on Tuesday, Gutekunst touched on a whole host of Packers-related topics, including the performance of Rashan Gary. We’ve discussed Gary as a potential cap casualty, but Gutekunst doesn’t seem to think that’s in the cards. Why? Because Gary had an “impactful” second half of the season last year.
“Sometimes, there is an ebb and flow with production with sacks. He was impactful towards the second half of the season,” Gutekunst said. “Maybe not as much as the first, but he was impactful.”
Gutekunst later noted he expects Gary to be productive “next year,” perhaps giving a clue about Gary’s 2026 status.
Let’s be clear before we go any further. I don’t expect Gutekunst to stand at the lectern and rag on his players. There are plenty of people capable of doing that (me, for instance) and there’s no benefit to him getting up there and talking about what a disappointment Gary was and how he needs to be better and so on. Everybody already knows that.
But with respect to the general manager…Brian, we’ve all got eyes, man. Rashan Gary was simply not an impactful player for the Packers down the stretch in 2025.
Gary appeared in 17 games for the Packers last year, including the playoffs, so it’s easy to split his season up into two halves. We’ll even give him a one-game boost when we’re breaking down his stats and break his season into two uneven chunks: the first eight games of the year and the last nine. Surely if Gary was an impactful player, his second-half stats should easily surpass the first, right?
It’s not even close. I looked at seven different stats (and his playing time) to see if Gary showed any kind of improvement or impactful play at all in the second half of last season, and couldn’t find any substantial impact at all. The seven stats were tackles, sacks (obviously), tackles for loss, quarterback hits, total pressures, and stops (a measure of how often a player prevents the offense from having a successful play (read more here)).
Gary declined in five of the seven stats, only showing minimal improvement in total pressures (which you’d expect with one more game in the sample) and pressure rate (showing he got pressures slightly more frequently on a per-snap basis).
But even that increase in his per-snap effectiveness should come with a grain of salt. Why? Because Gary was playing fewer snaps per game in the second half of the season. Over the final nine games of the year, Gary averaged just 38.7 snaps per game, down nearly five full snaps from the 43.5 he averaged during the first eight games of the season. It’s easier to put up better per-snap stats when you’re playing fewer snaps!
Here’s the full statistical comparison between the first eight games and the last nine.
Again, to be clear, I understand that Brian Gutekunst is going to say things in support of his players. But the Packers have a big decision coming up on Gary’s future. They’re set to pay Gary more than $20 million in real dollars in 2026, to say nothing of his $28 million cap hit. If he’s going to be a part of the team in 2026, he needs to be making a real impact — not just the kind his general manager will claim he made when speaking to friendly media.