Acme Packing Company
It’s pretty clear at this point that Green Bay Packers backup quarterback Malik Willis will be playing for another NFL team in 2026. Willis should command a deal in the range of Justin Fields’ two-year, $40 million contract, a benchmark deal for the “prove it here and you’ll get a real starting quarterback contract” market.
Generally, the market for true blue veteran backup quarterbacks now, ones who do not have to compete for their spot on the 53-man roster, is around $5 million per year in 2026. The Packers, due to their cap situation, aren’t really in the position to be throwing out that kind of money on a non-starter, especially without owning a first-round pick in either of the next two drafts.
So, how will the team back up starting Jordan Love moving forward? Well, over the past two weeks, they made two moves, adding Desmond Ridder and Kyle McCord, that will help quarterback coach Sean Mannion sleep a lot better at night.
Before we talk about Ridder and McCord, I want to take you back to the 2023 draft to show you how this could have gone wrong.
With Aaron Rodgers traded to the New York Jets and Love moving into a starting role, the Packers needed a backup quarterback in 2023. The problem is that, like in 2026, the team didn’t have much cap space, as they were one of the highest cash spending teams on the player level from 2020 to 2022. They paid a lot of money to go “all-in” at the end of the Rodgers era (were the 2nd-highest cash spend team on players in 2022) and now had to play within a restricted cap situation (were 27th in cash spend on players in 2023).
They were cheap in the backup quarterback market because they had to, just like the reality that they faced at the kicker position that year.
Another important piece to remember is that it wasn’t clear that the Packers were going to move on from Rodgers after the 2022 season. Had they known that, maybe they would have been more aggressive in the reserve/futures market for practice squad quarterbacks after their season ended (practice squad players usually sign deals right after their campaigns are over).
With cheap practice squad players (Green Bay just had Danny Etling, on his second stint with the team, come back from the practice squad in 2023) and veteran backups off the table, the team had to turn to the draft to backfill for Love moving into the starting role.
On draft weekend, five quarterbacks were picked in the top 68 selections, all players who were projected to be first-round picks based on the consensus draft board: Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson, Will Levis and Hendon Hooker.
Going into Day 3, the Packers were sitting pretty, as there were still nine players who had draftable grades on the consensus draft board who were still available to them. Then the run...
