The Green Bay Packers missed a golden opportunity this season. Adding Micah Parsons elevated this team's potential into the Super Bowl stratosphere, as they proved with dominant wins over the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders to begin the season.
Injuries took their toll. The Packers lost Parsons, Tucker Kraft, Devonte Wyatt, and Elgton Jenkins to season-ending injuries, and other key contributors went down for significant time, including Zach Tom, who missed six games, including the playoff loss.
The Packers also didn't get enough contributions from many of their highest earners. That hurt them badly, especially as injuries depleted the roster at key positions. There's additional pressure on players with the biggest cap hits, but many fell well short of expectations in 2025.
Note: All salary cap numbers in this article are according to Spotrac.
The contracts that haunted the Packers throughout the 2025 season
DE Rashan Gary
- 2025 cap hit: $25.78 million
- 2025 total cash: $17.25 million
It was supposed to be Rashan Gary's year. After trading for Micah Parsons, it looked like it would be.
Gary benefited from Parsons' arrival, seeing far fewer double teams. It helped him register 7.5 sacks, 13 quarterback hits, and seven tackles for loss in the opening seven games of the season. But then his production just disappeared. In the final nine games, Gary didn't make a single sack or tackle for loss, with just seven quarterback hits to his name.
A lack of production is one thing, but his performances left many questioning his effort, and that's inexcusable on such a massive contract.
Gary was one of the Packers' highest earners in 2025 — only Jordan Love had a higher cap hit than his $25.78 million. And with that number set to increase further over the final two years of his contract, the Packers will likely need to trade or cut their 2019 first-round pick this offseason.
G Aaron Banks
- 2025 cap hit: $9.03 million
- 2025 total cash: $29.4 million
Handing Aaron Banks $77 million never made any sense, and unfortunately, Packers fans' concerns became a reality throughout the year. Banks battled injuries early in the season and lacked consistency when healthy. At times, he provided average guard play, but there were far too many disappointing moments.
The Packers made Banks one of the highest-paid guards in football, but in Year 1 with the team, his PFF pass-blocking grade ranked 69th among 81 players at the position, while his run-blocking grade was good for just 58th.
Green Bay could move on this offseason and save $4.6 million in cap space, but the team would still eat $20.25 million in dead cap. It's tough, but admitting defeat and taking a hit might be the lesser of two evils.
CB Keisean Nixon
- 2025 cap hit: $6.84 million
- 2025 total cash: $4.68 million
For every big play Keisean Nixon produced, like his game-winning interception against the Chicago Bears at Lambeau Field, he made about three crucial errors, including several in both losses to the same team. In Week 16, he allowed the game-tying and game-losing touchdowns.
Nixon then made several big-time mistakes in the Wild Card Round nightmare. He gave up a needless 15-yard penalty by diving on the pile, made a coverage bust on the crucial 4th-and-8 conversion, and then seemed to make a business decision by jumping out of the way of D'Andre Swift on a touchdown run that made it a one-score game.
The Packers signed Nixon to become a key special teams player, but they shifted away from that to make him the CB1 in 2025. Needless to say, that experiment failed.
K Brandon McManus
- 2025 cap hit: $3.49 million
- 2025 total cash: $7 million
The Packers' special teams can only provide steady, consistent play for so long before it spirals into disaster.
It was particularly problematic during a bizarre stretch when the Packers had Brandon McManus play through injury, despite backup Lucas Havrisik outperforming him and even hitting a franchise-record 61-yard field goal. During those three games, McManus missed four of eight field goals and looked clearly below 100 percent. Green Bay lost two games by three points in that span.
Once healthy, McManus wouldn't miss a kick throughout the final seven games, but it all came crashing down (again) in the playoffs. The veteran missed both of his field goals and an extra-point attempt in the four-point defeat to the Bears. Simply brutal.
On the season, McManus converted only 80 percent of his field goals in the regular season and then missed three of his six kicks in the playoff loss.