Green Bay Packers: 15 best free agent acquisitions of all-time
By John Buhler
The Green Bay Packers haven’t historically been the biggest dabblers in free agency. That being said, here are their 15 greatest free agent signings ever.
The Green Bay Packers are one of the most storied franchises in the NFL. Green Bay has won 13 league championships and four Super Bowls. So much so that the Super Bowl championship trophy is named after the Packers’ most iconic head coach in Vince Lombardi.
Historically, the Packers have relied on scouting and player development to get the most out of their players. Of course, it helps to have had three Pro Football Hall of Fame caliber quarterbacks in Bart Starr, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers running the offense. Starr and Favre are already in Canton, while Rodgers is guaranteed to join them upon his retirement several years from now.
That being said, Green Bay has not been historically a franchise that will try its luck with players second-hand. Essentially, Green Bay would infinitely rather build its team through the NFL Draft, rather than dip its toes into NFL free agency.
However, that line of thinking about team-building does not exclude the Packers organization entirely from grabbing the occasional free agent that hits the market. In fact, Green Bay has absolutely crushed it on several of their free agent signings. A lot of these guys have played huge roles in the Packers winning championships and Super Bowls.
So what we’re going to do today is rank the 15 best free agent acquisitions made by the Packers in franchise history. This can include guys that went undrafted out of college, but this list will be largely skewed towards guys joining The Pack on their own accord in the NFL salary cap era (1993-present).
For the sake of simplicity, no player currently on the Packers will be eligible to make this list. So that eliminates guys like Jimmy Graham, Muhammad Wilkerson and Tramon Williams for inclusion, for the time being.
Frankly, the Packers didn’t do a bunch of free agent shopping when Ted Thompson was calling the shots. That does seem to be changing with Brian Gutekunst having his finger on the button in the Packers front office.
Without further ado, here are the 15 best free agent signings ever made by the Green Bay professional football franchise. Let’s start with No. 15.
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