The most obvious free agent signing of the spring has come to pass within an hour of it becoming a possibility. The Green Bay Packers desperately need a nose tackle and they have found one in Javon Hargrave.
The Packers reportedly have inked Hargrave to a big new two-year contract, giving him $23 million over the next two seasons according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The deal will pay him $13 million this year, with 2027 presumably being effectively a team option for the remaining $10 million. Note that
Schefter’s information comes from Hargrave’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, which could mean his actual compensation before incentives is a bit lower than that number.
Hargrave comes to the Packers from Minnesota, where he played in 2025. He missed only one game, recording 52 total tackles and 3.5 sacks in 15 starts while playing roughly 50 percent of the Vikings’ defensive snaps. Prior to his time in Minnesota, Hargrave played for the Steelers, Eagles, and 49ers, making Pro Bowls in 2021 and 2023.
That 2021 Pro Bowl season is part of why a connection to the Packers made so much sense. He earned that nod in Philadelphia that season, whose defense was coordinated by Jonathan Gannon, who was recently hired to that same job in Green Bay. The two overlapped in Philadelphia for two seasons, 2021 and 2022, with Hargrave posting a whopping total of 18.5 sacks as an interior defensive linemen in those two years.
This move shores up arguably the biggest hole on the Packers’ roster at this time. After trading Kenny Clark away last August (part of the Micah Parsons trade) and moving on from 2025 starter Colby Wooden last week in a trade to acquire linebacker Zaire Franklin, the team was woefully thin on proven players at the nose. Hargrave gives the Packers a true pocket-collapsing option at that position and though he just turned 33 years old, he has remained productive throughout the last few years.
The only season in which Hargrave has missed any time with injuries came in 2024, when he was limited to three games for the 49ers. A partially torn triceps muscle is what cost him most of that season, a freak injury that required surgery to repair.
While $23 million over two years sounds like a bit of a steep price for a 33-year-old tackle, the move makes sense for a multitude of reasons. Perhaps most critical is that it will not jeopardize any of the Packers’ expected compensatory draft picks in 2027; because the Vikings released Hargrave earlier in the day on Wednesday, he is classified as a street free agent and does not count in the compensatory pick calculation. That should allow the Packers to retain picks for most of their high-priced departing free agents, an important consideration as the team looks to build up draft capital next season.
