Unfortunately, this might end up being a weekly post at this point. Real simple question: How would you fix the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line?
Personally, I don’t think the team is going to make a coaching change in-season. I also don’t really think that a short-term free agent addition fixes what is going to be a long-term issue for the Packers. The way I see it, the only way out is through.
According to Over the Cap, the Packers are effectively $11 million over the cap in 2027, despite only having
44 players under contract. Because of how young the Zach Bako-Bewele contract is and the fact that Aaron Banks’ contract is how the team borrowed cap space for this year, even if the team moves on from those two players next off-season — it will likely come from post-June 1st designated releases, meaning that they’ll see little cap release from those moves until after the draft.
In short, the long-term timeline of the club was leveraged for the 2025 and 2026 seasons, which haven’t exactly gone great — if you haven’t noticed. There isn’t going to be a ton of money to go around for outside additions, even in 2027.
On top of that, two offensive linemen that fans wanted to run out of town after performing poorly last season, left tackle Rasheed Walker and center Elgton Jenkins, are both playing better for new teams in 2026. That’s only going to add fuel to the fire that this is a coaching problem on the offensive line, not necessarily a talent problem. The volume of mental mistakes on the line (really, the team in general; just go look at the Packers’ penalty numbers overall) compounds that.
Ultimately, Green Bay needs these young offensive linemen to perform, because help isn’t going to come until after they pull the plug and decide to pay down their cap debt — which will take at least one season but could take multiple, depending on how long and hard they decide to push during this “window.”
I believe what we’re going to see for the remainder of the season is the team trying to make it work with what they have internally, because it’s the only thing that matters long term. If the coaching staff can’t produce improvements, expect some heads to roll after the season. Hopefully, we can keep our quarterback healthy until then.
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