Former Green Bay Packers linebacker Eric Wilson has made himself a lot of money off of his 2025 campaign with the Minnesota Vikings.
In his three years in Green Bay (2022 to 2024), Wilson made a total of $3.42 million, all on a series of one-year contracts that he signed as a veteran. After 2024, he became an unrestricted free agent and returned to the Minnesota Vikings, where he started his NFL career, and surprisingly played 90 percent of the team’s defensive snaps last season, despite signing just
a $2.75 million deal, well under the asking price of a starter.
According to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, the Vikings and Wilson struck a three-year, $22.5 million contract extension just about 12 hours before Wilson would have been able to “legally tamper” with other teams in free agency. Per Spotrac’s accounting, Wilson, going into his Year 31 season and his 10th NFL season overall, has made $14.1 million at this point in his career, so he’s receiving a significant pay raise at his $7.5 million per season rate on this new deal.
One of the bigger questions the Packers have this offseason also revolves around Wilson, funny enough. Later this week, the NFL will officially announce the 2026 compensatory draft choices, based on free agents that teams lost in the 2025 cycle. Green Bay will be receiving a seventh-round pick for center Josh Myers, who moved up in the compensatory pick formula due to his playing time with the New York Jets (he also signed a two-year, $11 million extension after playing one a one-year, $2 million deal in 2025).
Wilson is right on the cutoff for the league’s awarded picks, though. It’s up in the air right now whether or not the Packers will get a compensatory seventh-round pick for the loss of Wilson. If they do, though, it’s highly likely that the selection will be the Mr. Irrelevant pick, the final choice in the 2026 draft.
Wilson’s extension will not impact the comp pick formula because players’ average per year (APY), the main factor driving a player’s ranking in the formula, is calculated after the regular season, not the end of the new league year. Myers’ extension was done in-season, which is why he got the bump.
There’s going to be plenty to keep an eye on this week, as free agency news will be flying around, but expect this announcement to be made around the start of the new league on Wednesday, March 11th.
For whatever it’s worth, Wilson will make more per year than the Packers are set to pay their new linebacker, Zaire Franklin, in 2026 ($7 million). Isaiah McDuffie, who was ahead of Wilson on the depth chart in both 2023 and 2024, signed for a two-year, $8 million (total, $4 million per) contract last offseason.
