Myles Garrett wants a championship win. The Green Bay Packers are desperate for a Super Bowl run too, and they need a go-to pass rusher to complete their defense. A match made in heaven? Many analysts and fans think so.
Advertisement
When Garrett requested a trade from the Cleveland Browns earlier this month, he turned heads. However, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering how bad the Browns have been for so long. It also set the speculative wheels spinning over possible landing spots.
This may or may not happen, since the Browns appear keen on keeping the 2023 Defensive Player of the Year. But that won’t stop other teams from making calls and NFL pundits from coming up with multiple theories on possible trade scenarios.
Enter the Green Bay Packers. They were top 10 in sacks last year, but they didn’t have any single player with 8+ sacks of his own. They need a No. 1 pass rusher, and Garrett would be a perfect fit.
However, NFL veteran and two-time Super Bowl champion Damien Woody doesn’t think the addition would make the Packers the No. 1 challengers to the Philadelphia Eagles’ NFC supremacy. All because he’s “not sold on Jordan Love…”
“… I don’t know if the Packers are actually sold on Jordan Love with the way they ran the football and the volume in which they ran the football last year. So, even with Myles Garrett, I don’t look at them as the team that competes with the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC,” said Woody on Get Up.
In 2023, during an excellent final two-and-a-half-month stretch in his first season as a starter in Green Bay, Love was spectacular. However, he took a noticeable step back in 2024 — notably after signing a $55 million-a-year contract.
The size of the contract shows how much Green Bay believes in Love. However, they have quietly been playing him with the training wheels on for early downs, pointed out journalist Bill Barnwell.
“The decisions you make, the positions you put your QB in. And the Packers are very conservative running the football here. 57 percent of the time on early downs last year… they were running the football. Highest rate in football by a significant margin, even higher than the Eagles,” said Barnwell.
Having a good running game isn’t a negative, the Eagles proved that. But as Barnwell said, the decisions a staff makes regarding strategy speak a lot to their opinions on certain players, especially the QB. If Josh Jacobs can keep carrying the offense, the Packers will hope that Love has a Jalen Hurts-esque evolution soon.
“Nothing wrong with running the football… but if you have a guy who you think is a threat to the other team in the passing game, that they’re scared of seeing throw the football, you’re throwing the football a lot more on 1st and 2nd down,” said Barnwell.
Not to mention that the Eagles aren’t the only team the Packers have to worry about in an increasingly tough NFC. They’ve still got “work to do within their own division”, as Woody indicated.
The Detroit Lions didn’t lose any major pieces and are almost guaranteed to have a better injury record than last year. Apart from the uncertainty at QB, the Minnesota Vikings are locked and loaded for another big run in 2025 as well.
“I still think the Detroit Lions aren’t going anywhere, the Minnesota Vikings are going to have something to say even with the potential departure of Sam Darnold,” added Woody.
The Packers made the playoffs last year, but they finished a distant 3rd in the NFC North. Even with Garrett in the mix, that could very well be the result again in 2025. Especially if Love doesn’t bounce back. He threw interceptions at a higher rate, completions at a lower rate, and passed for fewer yards per game in 2024 than he did in 2023.
Green Bay could stand to add a few more pieces, even with a hypothetical Garrett acquisition. They don’t have a ton of cap space.
But, the $44.5 million they do have should be more than enough to nab at least one, if not two, premium free agents. Much like what they did last year with Josh Jacobs and Xavier McKinney.
