Green Bay Packers: NFL analyst identifies 1 player the team should trade this off-season

To be clear, it is obvious that Gary is a salary cap cut candidate. This is not only because the Packers can save millions of dollars by releasing him, but also because he underperformed in 2025.

In a recent article in which he named six NFL players who will be traded this off-season, NFL analyst Brad Gagnon listed Gary, writing:

“Micah Parsons is the man on the edge in Green Bay, and they also have relatively young former first-round pick Lukas Van Ness on the depth chart there. A team that lacks draft capital without a first-round pick could get some back while also saving anywhere between $10 million and $20 million, depending on the timing. Alternatively, trading Van Ness—who has fallen short of expectations—while he wraps up his affordable rookie deal would make sense as a less extreme approach.”

The comments about Van Ness are, in a word, untrue. Green Bay is very high on Van Ness, who was having an exciting 2025 season before a foot injury.

But Gagnon doubled down on the Van Ness slander with the following reason why the Packers would not trade Gary:

“They probably don’t trust Van Ness, while Parsons is recovering from a torn ACL. With no first-round pick, a Gary trade might be viewed as too big a risk for the Green Bay front office. He’s seasoned but still only 28, and this team considers itself a contender.”

The fact of the matter is that this is an analysis that does not take into account how Green Bay does business and builds its roster. In reality, the Packers would much rather keep Van Ness on his rookie deal than Gary on his current contract.

What is more, Green Bay is more likely to pick up Van Ness’ fifth-year option this off-season as opposed to trading him.

But the incorrect Van Ness comments aside, the Packers will not trade Gary this off-season because NFL teams would rather wait for him to hit the open market upon his release instead of having to give up draft capital for him.

No doubt, Green Bay would love to trade Gary if they could. But as they found out last year when they tried to trade Jaire Alexander, no NFL teams are going to offer much of anything for a player that is going to get released anyway.