The Green Bay Packers eat $17 million in dead cap after Rashan Gary's disappointing tenure, a costly legacy for the former top pick.
It's fair to say that Rashan Gary was a dissapointment for the Green Bay Packers.
He was the No. 12 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, and general manager Brian Gutekunst undoubtedly selected him because he saw big-time pass-rushing potential on his tape.
Potential was all Gutekunst had to have seen, though. That and freaky athleticism.
Gary totalled 10.5 sacks in three seasons for the Michigan Wolverines, but Gutekunst saw a 6-foot-5, 277-pound superhuman and felt the Packers could develop Gary into a star at the NFL level.
That never happened, despite Gary showing some flashes of elite play and the Packers giving him not just the opportunity to come along slowly behind Za'Darius Smith and Preston Smith, but to play alongside Micah Parsons in 2025.
Gary's high-water mark for sacks was 9.5 in 2021, but he averaged just a tick over six sacks per season.
That would have been good for a third-round pick. In fact, Packers fans would have been stoked about that production.
As the former No. 12 overall pick, though? It was just never good enough. Throw in the clear lack of effort towards the end of the 2025 season, and the Packers were lucky to finesse a fourth-round 2027 draft pick from Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys for Gary.
He was a guy who was well on his way towards being released, but Jones threw the Packers another bone.
Green Bay doesn't come out of this unscathed, though.
Zach Kruse of PackersWire pointed out recently that the Packers are carrying $43.1 million in dead cap money heading into the 2026 season. Gary is responsible for $17 million of that.
Dead cap is a normal thing in the NFL. In fact, Kruse reported that at least half the league has a dead cap hit of at least $35 million in 2026 and that $43.1 million for the Packers is actually one of their lowest figures in years.
Dead cap is part of doing business in today's NFL, but it's also a hard reality for a team like the Packers who feel like they're just one or two solid players away from making a legitimate Super Bowl run.
That's $17 million of cap room that could have been used to bring a game-changer in.
Not only that, but had Gary lived up to the four-year, $96 million contract extension Gutekunst gave him in October of 2023, we wouldn't even be talking about the Packers receiving a fourth-round pick in 2027 for him, which looks like highway robbery.
Gary's lasting legacy with the Packers may very well be the 10-straight games (including the playoffs) at the end of 2025 in which he went without a sack.
That, plus $17 million in dead cap money for 2026, will leave a bad taste in the mouth of even the most optimistic of fans.
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