The Green Bay Packers are as driven as any front office by drafting and developing their own talent. Not often do you see GM Brian Gutekunst and Co. reach on a player out of sheer need.
But NFL teams can make this need/reach mistake in free agency, too. They overpay for either a somewhat middling (possibly ascending?) player who they're betting on hitting big on a second contract, or shell out a premium for a declining veteran they hope can solve their roster hole.
Javon Hargrave will do his best to avoid the latter category after signing a two-year, $23 million contract this offseason to address Green Bay's dubious defensive tackle position.
Packers DT Javon Hargrave will enter training camp with a lot to prove
This deal that Hargrave is playing on is almost more like pro football's NBA equivalent of a one-plus-one contract with a team option. The Packers can move off Hargrave in 2027 and save $10 million in cap space even if he's cut prior to June 1.
Thus, entering his age-33 season, much of the burden is on Hargrave to bolster a defensive front that has Devonte Wyatt coming off of two major injuries and will miss Micah Parsons for the start of the season.
Bleacher Report's Moe Moton fired up a recent piece about each team's biggest predicted player bust of the season. For Green Bay, Hargrave was spotlighted and painted as an aging, overpaid player:
"The Green Bay Packers signed Javon Hargrave to a two-year, $23 million deal, which would've been a solid signing three years ago. Over the last two seasons, the 33-year-old defensive tackle has missed 15 games and played only 53 percent of the Minnesota Vikings' defensive snaps last season. The Packers grossly overpaid for a player they had seen twice the previous season. Green Bay filled a need by signing Hargrave, but he's well past his prime and has had minimal impact on the pass rush since his 2023 Pro Bowl campaign. Over the last two terms, Hargrave has registered just 4.5 sacks and 13 pressures."
Let's bear in mind, though, that defensive tackles don't tend to put up monster numbers in Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores' system. That didn't stop Hargrave from putting up 52 total tackles and 3.5 sacks in 2025, so the stats in Moton's analysis are a tad misleading/disingenuous.
The fact that Hargrave missed all but three games in 2024 is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sort of takedown. He missed only one game last year.
Rookie third-round pick Chris McClellan has already been getting first-team reps. Whether that speaks to how impactful he could be right away or is a byproduct of poor depth in the trenches remains to be seen. What is clear is that he could easily eat into Hargrave's snap count.
...And that might not be a bad thing. If Hargrave is supposedly approaching "washed" territory, staying fresh and not playing so often could be a big benefit.
Still, given the money invested in Hargrave, and the fact that he doesn't have the same flexibility as McClellan to play nose tackle, the pressure is really on for him to perform.
As touched on before, Wyatt had a fibula fracture and ankle ligament tear in Week 13 last season. He's rehabbed throughout the offseason program and should be cleared for training camp, but how much can he be counted on in the early going?
It should be mighty interesting to see how this all shakes out, considering Hargrave and Karl Brooks are much more known for pass rushing than run defense. The same goes for Wyatt when he's healthy. Do the Pack have a legit run stopper on their interior D-line? I'm not so sure!
When you really break it down, Hargrave will be as under the microscope as any Packers player this training camp and especially over the first several regular-season games. We'll find out in a hurry if he was worth that open-market payday.
Add us as a preferred source on Google