Correct. Quay is going to the bank.

I have come around on my opinion of Walker for the most part. My question isn't any longer about if they should keep him in GB, but rather for how much and what the guarantees are. What do you folks think?

Quay should buy some farmland so he has a good investment for years.

They don’t make any more land.

Isn't Quay Walker the guy that people have said is just not "good enough"? I seem to recall quite a bit of conversation along that line.

This is a difficult one. He’s a good ILB now but not a great one. He’s probably not the best ILB on our roster even now. Will he improve further? Or is this a trap where we overpay a solid starter as if he were a star?

I looked at PFF while writing this. Take their rating with a pinch of salt, but it’s almost dead on league average (60), and 41st of 80. By comparison, they have Cooper at 15th of 80 and a near 75 rating. Cooper may out play his rookie deal within its term.

To be honest, I don’t know the answer, but I suspect that the difficulty will be his expectations versus the Packers’ and what that means for cost. Urlacher he is not and I don’t ever see him being. Cooper is looking like he could be. So how much do you invest and for how long in that group?

Not clear cut for me. Suppose we lined up next year with Cooper and Hopper with McDuffie and more cap? How much should we pay and will we pay to avoid that?

I thought he'd been calling plays and had the green dot ever since he replaced Campble in his rookie season? That's when Campble lost his attitude. When Quay's injured, I think it's X.M. that has the dot but it could be Cooper this season.

He usually plays 100% of the snaps and he's been improving at a greater pace while Cooper is next to him. They can feed off each other.

I say extend him now.
He is the physical presence this team needs.
and yes, he has earned it!

I would advise the Packers to slow their decision to give Walker a big extension. Part of a GM's 'grades' include signing second contracts and this fact has the potential to influence this decision.The extensions by Gutekunst to Gary, Clark and Alexander have proven to be too generous for their level of play. The return on investment has not played out. I would look objectively at how non-Packer evaluators grade him as well. I would feel differently if we were talking about Williams, Kraft, Jacobs, etc. Packer's already paid extremely high salaries to 2 players, this season, who are not producing to the level of their investment-Banks and Hobbs.

I wonder if Policy has input into these decisions?

The linebacking corp looks to be in good shape....Cooper, Walker, McDuffie are a solid 3 man group that makes over 20 tackles per game. No other linebacker has more than 4, so the obvious conclusion is that we want these three guys, mostly in a rotation.

I don't know where I first heard "If it aint broke, don't fix it". Letting Walker get away from us, when we have Cooper under contract for two years after this season, would be from the same school of thought that encouraged the Vikings to part with Darnold so they could save money with Wentz. Not the same magnitude, but definitely on the same road.

We have a serious defense. 10th in scoring in 2023, 6th in 2024, and 10th this year so far. We've added talent at key positions. Cooper and Walker are a real good pair of guys to have on the field at crunch time. Add that to the best nickel of McKinney, Williams, Bullard, Nixon, and Valentine, and rush the passer with 4....that's legit defense. ALL of these guys under under contract for NEXT YEAR! IOW, we don't have to fill holes, unless we make those holes just so we can spend resources to fill them. Keep Walker or Enagbare? I'd like to keep them both, of course, but if push comes to shove? I'd rather keep Walker for the next 3 years, because Walker and Cooper in the middle of your defense for the next 3 years is a good thing.

Edit: I did some checking. Last Free Agency period, Robert Spillane was the winner with $20M contract, followed by 3 guys who were getting around $10M, about a half dozen guys who were making $5M or less, and the rest were minimum wage guys. Using this as a framework, I would suggest we could pay Walker to stay, unless he blows up in the Super Bowl with 15 tackles and 2 TDs, in which case, he's gone.

Some on here are questioning an extension with this or that argument. That's classic letting the perfect be the enemy of the good thinking. No player in the history of sports, let alone the Packers, has ever been perfect. And that includes Walker. But he has been good and a very good fit for this defense. Obviously, it would be crazy to extend him at Jordan Love type numbers. But that isn't on the horizon. Gute knows what he's doing in building the roster and I'm happy to rely on his judgement. He will do the right thing on Walker.

He has finally made the jump physically and now has matured. A year ago he probably would have responded in a negative way hurting our chances of winning. Make no mistake Metcalf was trying to bait him into a response to help Steelers I don’t think teams will not try and bait him anymore. They will look to bait other young players

The Packers are going to have to make some tough contract decisions if they want to keep the band together for more than a single act. Quay is good, and much better than he used to be, but in my mind he just isn't good enough to score a premium salary at his position. I wouldn't be that happy about it, but I think this is a prime spot for a cap casualty.

Isaiah McDuffie has actually played pretty well in limited duty this year, and hasn't been a huge downgrade when he's on the field. I think he's under contract for next year too. I think the Packers see him more as a Will than a Mike, but he has played the mike when quay was out. I'm not saying McD is the future or anything close to that, but he hasn't totally sucked either. You could get by....

Quay has gone from being good yet making boneheaded plays to being very good and becoming indispensable. He's an example of a player you should reward for his hard work to become a better professional.

Add in , if you pay Quay, does hopper ever see the field? That’s a third round pick that you want to see in action… tough call indeed.

Wish Gil would have make the case for Quay with more stats on his 3 1/2 years of productive stats. Most of the case was his maturity and lack of stupid penalties to justify and new deal.

I believe he should get a new deal because:
1. He makes tackles all over the field. At the end of the play, mostly you will see Quay in the mix along with Coop. Those two are the enforcers of the D.

2. His accumulated stats since drafted have to be near the top of all LBs selected in his class.

3. I questioned his football intel to wear the "dot" during his first few years playing Barry Ball. I don't now. In fact Hafley has been effusive this season complimenting Quay on his knowledge of the D, getting call set up correctly and quickly. Hafley says "Quay gets it now...very impressed with his growth."

4. Quay was voted one of 5 permanent Captains of the Packers for the season by his teammates. That's big.

Keep him on the team.

So much chatter about resigning players. We all know that when we signed Micah, there would be some issues down the road called CAP. I don't have a handle on the CAP or how high it will go in the next few years but from what I read after Micah came aboard, there will be some tough decisions on retaining players.

I have a couple ideas and please keep in mind what I said about touch decisions. I think we have to look at high contracts for some of our players and do we need them or not. Take, for instance, Rashan Gary. We know he is good but is he great and does he play up to the huge contract that he has now? How much does Micah make Rashan Gary look better now?

The edge is one of our strongest areas even though we have a couple of players that are injured-LVN and Cox. Would we be better off trading Gary for let's say a first rounder and/or a very good corner? Just a thought.

Also, this last game, the kicker missed two field goals. We are keeping two FG specialists for the time being. Why don't we let Havrisik do the kicking until he royally screws up? If he has a bad game then replace him with McManus. There is a real good chance he will not screw up and could a cheaper version over McManus and maybe even better.

These are just some thoughts as the CAP of the future will be an issue for us.

I don't think anyone is saying he shouldn't remain on the team but should he get one of those big extensions?
I vote for something more manageable-he is good, not great.

Based on how well he's played since he began to share the field with Cooper he is worth trying to keep around. At the right price.

I've come around on Walker. I used to be not so keen on him in the first two and a half seasons because it just didn't seem like he was getting it and the low impulse control was on display too much. The tackle "numbers" were never something I looked at because for someone playing almost every defensive snap in that position it was reasonably expected that he should be making all those tackles (opportunity+position=number of tackles). He has matured greatly and has begun to play all around solidly. I think he has improved a lot.

So yeah, let's see if they can figure out a way to keep him in Green Bay.

If they're gonna extend walker, which they should, make sure it's a 3 to 4 yr deal. Let Russ Ball do his magic to help the cap next year cuz it's gonna be expensive soon. To that point, get tucks done while we're at it.