2 Packers who deserve presents and 2 who deserve coal on Christmas morning
By Josh Wilson
Brian Gutekunst has earned himself coal
Brian Gutekunst has a difficult job as the general manager of such a historic and perennially successful franchise. But that's the role, and the Packers, now at risk of missing the postseason in two straight years, are not meeting lofty expectations.
A couple of failures stand out relative to Gutekunst himself. For one, the whole Aaron Rodgers fallout. Regardless of how you feel about Rodgers departing Green Bay at this specific time and the Packers moving onto a new quarterback, it's never a good look for an All-Pro player to have bad things to say about your GM the way Rodgers did. Fair or not, it's not a very good look for Gutekunst.
Zooming out, it's arguable that Gutekunst fumbled the situation with Rodgers when he drafted Jordan Love in the first round in 2020. That was widely believed to have surprised Rodgers, a decision that Gutekunst could have managed better and honestly could have probably waited on altogether.
Love has been good, but was he worth creating years-long friction and distraction with the Super Bowl-winning starting QB over? Hard to say.
But even so, if he believed Love to be the right guy for the future, it's hard to fault that. It's the GM's job to be decisive and visionary for the team with a concrete plan for moving forward. Unfortunately, though, the talent around Love thus far has not screamed 'setting him up for success.'
Furthermore, one sentiment I'll echo from Rob Demovsky at ESPN is that there are no real standout individuals on defense. In actuality, there aren't many standouts in any facet of the team. When I sat down to make this list it was honestly difficult to land on specific names of people who had been good enough or bad enough to be notable.
While there's a possible optimistic spin to that for sure, in professional sports it's tough to win or make the playoffs without at least one or two players who are head and shoulders above the rest. Maybe those guys emerge in the coming years, but thus far, it's tough to see who it might be.