Cheese Curds and Beer Brats: New Packers General Manager Brian Gutekunst

Ted Thompson’s replacement has been named and there is an already established amount of work in place for the new Packer GM. With a roster full of unknowns revolving around established veteran players with big contracts, numerous questions remain regarding the future of the Cheeseheads.

The Green Bay Packers have appointed Gutekunst as Ted Thompson’s replacement as the franchise’s general manager. Thompson served as the team’s GM for 13 seasons before recently transitioning into a new role within the Packer organization. Just for the record, it's pronounced GOO-tuh-kunst. This is important, as it is a name that the Packer faithful will likely be saying for better or worse in the coming years.

Gutekunst served as Green Bay’s player personnel director for nearly two years but has served as a member of the Packers’ player personnel department in some capacity since 1998. Gutekunst began as an intern with the Green Bay scouting department in 1997 before a full-time job as an assistant for the Kansas City Chiefs. From there he returned to the Packer organization as a college scout in late 1998 when he was hired by a former Lambeau great. Hall of Fame general manager Ron Wolf.

The Packer’s GM search was bolstered by several strong in-house candidates including vice president of football administration Russ Ball, and director of football operations Eliot Wolf. Despite the upside presented by the other two in-house candidates, Wolf is widely regarded as a power-house in the pro scouting field, and the Ball is an adept contract negotiator as well as masterful manager of the salary-cap, the team settled on Gutekunst as the most well-rounded scout of their personnel department additionally bolstered by an exemplary interview and interest in his services from other teams throughout the league.

The reluctance of the team to promote Ball into the position stems from the Packers’ desire to deviate from a continuation of the “Ted Thompson method”, virtually ignoring free agency and relying solely on the draft. It is additionally believed that Ball played a primary role in the decision to abstain from re-signing free agents Julius Peppers, and 2017 second-team All-Pro Micah Hyde last offseason.

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The appointment of Gutekunst should present somewhat of a contrast to Green Bay’s status quo for the better part of this century. It is difficult to imagine another GM being less visible or accessible than former general manager Ted Thompson, often leaving Mike McCarthy to face the press regarding in-season roster decisions. For example, it was McCarthy at the podium during the Brett Favre retirement saga of 2008.

Though the Packers will likely lose Wolf to the Cleveland Browns organization, the team seems to already be making marked strides in at least a more interesting direction. On his first day on the job, Brian Gutekunst said the right things to satisfy what many a Cheesehead have been waiting to hear. Under Gutekunst, Green Bay will continue building their foundation through the draft. However, the new Packer GM has already begun energizing fans and staff, making the promise to take more of an aggressive approach through free agency, supplementing the roster with able veteran players.

Despite the motion in such a seemingly positive direction, issues with the organization remain, and Gutekunst has his work cut out for him. The elephant in the room remains the situation with the Wolf family. Ron Wolf was integral to the rise and sustained success of the Packer organization in addition to the cultivation and development of “The Packer Way”, methodical development through the draft and steady consistency both in roster development, as well as on an organizational level. Eliot Wolf is certainly young enough, and with time on his side has a plethora of time to find a general manager position. Unfortunately, unless he is willing to wait years, that position won’t be with Green Bay. Despite Ron Wolf’s hiring of Gutekunst, his wish was always for his son to occupy his former position. Gutekunst stated he hoped that Eliot would serve as his aide for his new position, but would not stand in the way of his “right-hand man” should find another opportunity.

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Green Bay finished the 2017 year with a losing record at 7-9, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2008, but the return on draft picks, defensive performance, and overall talent development have been on a downward slide since as early as Green Bay’s appearance in Super Bowl XLV.

The 2017 season was revealing of the Packers deficiencies as a squad in a variety of ways after Aaron Rodgers unfortunate collarbone injury in week 7. The team continued to decline on defense in spite the development of young drafted players, and the signing of Davon House to help bolster the much-maligned unit. Green Bay’s defense failed to generate any semblance of a consistent pass-rush, often relying on inexperienced players at cornerback due to injuries, turnover, and inconsistency at the position. This resulted in the firing of veteran coordinator Dom Capers, much to the delight of many Packers fans who felt the move was a long time coming.

The Gutekunst hiring is additionally reinforced by his experience working alongside Head Coach Mike McCarthy. The coach received a contract extension during 2017 to lock him under contract through the 2019 year. McCarthy enters 2018 filling several assistant coaching vacancies. As a result, the Packer faithful will additionally be seeing new faces at both offensive and defensive coordinator.

Although a slew of questions remain about what the on-field product for Green Bay might be like in 2018, all signs seem to be pointing in the right direction with the implementation of Gutekunst in the general manager role. With the commitment to move the team’s operations into a new direction, in addition to a strong coach-manager partnership and enough of an obligation to the steady-as-it-goes Packer mantra, the outlook for the future of the Wisconsinite cheese adorning fanatics certainly seems as sharp as the finest Midwest cheddar.