Who could replace Packers pass rusher Za'Darius Smith? One name jumps out
GREEN BAY — The Green Bay Packers’ defense took a devastating blow this week when Za’Darius Smith had back surgery.
The Packers haven’t ruled him out for the season, but reports that they “hope” he can return sometime this season suggest that prospect is hardly promising. The smart money says he’s done for the year, and even on the off chance he returns in January, how effective can he be after being laid up several months after surgery?
But general manager Brian Gutekunst and his staff have no time for self-pity even if this loss has cost the team its second- or third-most indispensable player – that list consists of Aaron Rodgers and then either Smith or Jaire Alexander, take your pick, at Nos. 2 and 3.
Gutekunst, director of football operations Milt Hendrickson, co-directors of player personnel Jon-Eric Sullivan and John Wojciechowski and director of pro personnel Richmond Williams should already be neck deep in a search for a player to mitigate the loss.
There’s no way they’ll find someone as good as Smith. Not in-season. But they’ve got to do something to upgrade a front seven that already needs help on the interior of the defensive line. Rashan Gary and Preston Smith on the outside and Kenny Clark inside don’t provide enough pass-rushing punch for a team with Super Bowl aspirations. The Packers need a fourth rusher better than Jonathan Garvin, Chauncey Rivers and anyone else on the roster if they’re going to pressure good quarterbacks in big games.
The question is, who?
The most likely answer is identifying teams looking more to the future than the present and willing to trade a decent talent who’s old enough, or expensive enough, to not fit into their future plans.
A couple weeks ago I broached the idea of Gutekunst taking a big swing at defensive line by asking Atlanta about Pro Bowl tackle Grady Jarrett (28 years old). It wouldn’t be a trade for the Packers to absorb because Jarrett is expensive for a cap-strapped team. He has a $13.5 million salary this season, and even if he was acquired at the Nov. 2 trade deadline, the Packers would be responsible for about $7.5 million of it. He also has a $16.5 million salary in 2022. Any deal for him would require, at minimum, the Packers to restructure his contract and kick even more cap costs down the road.
It’s worth considering because even though Jarrett isn’t an outside rusher, he’s a difference maker on the line. He’s not a huge sack guy – 11½ in 2019 and ’20 combined, one in three games this year – but over the last four seasons his 87 pressures (sacks, hits and hurries) are nearly twice as many as Clark’s (48). Having those two pushing the pocket and keeping quarterbacks from stepping up would create major problems for offenses. Nothing bothers the passer more than pressure up the middle.
Barring that kind of big move, there are a few outside rushers the Packers should take a hard look at, and the name that jumps out also plays for the Falcons: Dante Fowler.
Fowler has hardly lived up to his draft pedigree as the No. 3 pick overall in 2015 after tearing his ACL at his rookie minicamp. He has had four sacks or fewer in three of his five previous seasons. That includes four sacks and 35 pressures in 16 games in 2018, and three sacks and 23 pressures in 14 games in 2020. But in 2019 he had a big season (11½ sacks, 35 pressures) while helping the Los Angeles Rams reach the Super Bowl. This is his second year with the Falcons after they signed him as a free agent in ’19 to a deal that included $29 million fully guaranteed. After getting only three sacks and 23 pressures in the first year of that deal, he accepted a pay cut last offseason. In three games in 2021 he has put up two sacks and four pressures.
He’s also in the last year of his contract and is old enough (28) that the Falcons’ new general manager (Terry Fontenot) and new coach (Arthur Smith) will probably move on from in the offseason anyway. Hard not to think they’re open to getting a draft pick for him now rather than nothing later.
Another factor is that Packers defensive coordinator Joe Barry was Fowler’s position coach with the Rams in 2019. If Barry recommends him, that will carry a lot of weight.
Fowler’s contract is substantial but could be worked around as well. His salary is $6 million, and the Falcons are responsible for 1/18th of that ($333,333) each week he’s with them, so after this weekend $1.3 million already will have been shaved off that. The Packers have about $5.4 million in effective cap space, according to independent cap analyst Ken Ingalls. But they could restructure Fowler’s contract after a trade and lower his cap number further
What would it take to get Fowler from the 1-2 Falcons, assuming Atlanta is open to a trade? With only a year left on Fowler’s contract, this would probably be a one-year rental. The Falcons might ask for a third-rounder, but it’s not like the Packers have to make this move now. If they wait, a fourth-rounder might do it.
Some older rushers might be available too, but Gutekunst has to be wary about whether they have enough left in the tank to be worth acquiring. Here are a few:
– Houston’s Whitney Mercilus (31 years old) had 11½ sacks and 35 pressures in ’19 and ’20 combined (29 games) and has two sacks and three pressures this season. His salary is $4.5 million.
– Philadelphia’s Ryan Kerrigan (33) had 11 sacks and 38 pressures in ’19 and ’20 combined (28 games) and has no sacks and one pressure in three games this season. His salary is $1.075 million.
– Pittsburgh’s Melvin Ingram (32) had seven sacks and 35 pressures in ’19 and ’20 combined (20 games) and has no sacks and seven pressures in three games this season. His salary is $1.075 million.
– Seattle’s Carlos Dunlap (32) had 15 sacks and 58 pressures in ’19 and ’20 combined and has no sacks and three pressures in three games this season. His salary is $1.5 million. Whether the Seahawks would trade him, especially to a contender in the NFC, after paying him a $7 million signing bonus in the offseason is a big question. But their GM, John Schneider, is as willing a dealer as there is in the league.
There surely are other possibilities as well, especially as the standings sort out and teams fall to the fringe of the playoff race over the next month.
Regardless, Gutekunst has to assume Za’Darius Smith’s season is finished. The GM can’t replace his best pass rusher, but he and his lieutenants have to find somebody to make up some of the difference in this all-in season.