The Green Bay Packers can ill-afford to lose capable players in their secondary.
On Saturday they learned that cornerback Sam Shields will test the free agent market. From ProFootballTalk:
The Packers and CB Sam Shields will not get a deal done by March 8. He'll test the market, per league source.
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) March 1, 2014
This confirms what the Packers suspected earlier this off-season, and there is still a chance that they will be able to sign him back as a free agent.
Packers and CB Sam Shields will not have a deal done before free agency starts and Shields will test market. Still could return to GB later.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 1, 2014
The other teams around the league could look at things two ways. On the one hand, Shields was one of a number of members of the Packers defense that got burned again and again over the course of the 2013 season. On the other hand, one could argue that he was a quality player on a defense that did not have enough quality pieces.
It will be interesting to see how Shields’ market shapes up and if a return to Green Bay is in the cards.