Packers GM Brian Gutekunst offers honest review of Rashan Gary's inconsistent 2025

Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst spoke with the media for the first time since the team’s season ended at the hands of the Chicago Bears in the first round of the playoffs. Gutekunst touched on a lot of topics, but he had an interesting summarization of Rashan Gary’s 2025 season.

"I thought he started out really, really strong,” Gutekunst said Wednesday. “He had a lot of production early...I did think toward the end he wasn't as productive as he was at the beginning. Certainly, that'll be something I'm sure he looks at personally, and we look at as a team how we can make sure that his production level is the same at the beginning and end of the season."

Turns out, the Packers general manager shared basically the same thoughts as everyone else.

Year 7 was shaping up to be the best season of Gary’s career, with the former first-round pick racking up 7.5 sacks in the first seven games. Unfortunately, Gary’s production fell off a cliff as he failed to record another sack over the next nine games.

Gutekunst did acknowledge that Gary’s final sack numbers — along with 60 total pressures, per Pro Football Focus, including the playoff game — still qualify as solid production by NFL standards.

During the 2023 season, Green Bay gave Gary a four-year contract extension worth up to $107 million, even though he had never reached double-digit sacks in a season. Given Gary’s sharp decline in 2025 and the fact that his cap hit balloons to upwards of $28 million in 2026, many believe he is on the chopping block for potentially being cut or traded.

However, the one in charge of making such decisions expressed a different opinion at least publicly.

“I expect all these guys who are under contract to be back,” said Gutekunst while emphasizing that the personnel department is in the early stages of building next year’s team.

Gutekunst and Green Bay’s salary cap expert, Russ Ball, also have the option to approach Gary about taking a pay cut, but that is a roll of the dice. Meanwhile, releasing him with a post-June 1 designation saves the team approximately $19.5 million in 2026 salary cap space but would have to split the dead money over two years.

It won’t be an easy decision, and as Gutekunst mentioned, the team is still in the early stages of deciding how to build next year’s roster. The Packers’ pass rush is in good hands when Micah Parsons is healthy, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the team needs more consistency out of Gary. We should get more clarity on Gary’s future in Green Bay over the next couple of months.

This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: Packers GM Brian Gutekunst offers honest review of Rashan Gary's inconsistent 2025