{"id":791778,"date":"2026-05-12T19:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/791778\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T19:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:59:14","slug":"packers-udfa-has-more-guaranteed-money-than-draft-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/791778\/","title":{"rendered":"Packers UDFA has more guaranteed money than draft picks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Cap guru Ken Ingalls has reported some of the Green Bay Packers\u2019 top guarantees for their undrafted free agents in the 2026 class. <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/KenIngalls\/status\/2052397143235625107\" rel=\"nofollow\">According to Ingalls<\/a>, edge rusher Nyjalik Kelly received $247,500 in guarantees, followed by offensive linemen Josh Gesky ($200,000), receiver J. Michael Sturdivant ($200,000) and linebacker TJ Quinn ($150,000).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Reporting has also dropped on the Packers\u2019 2026 draft pick signings, as all but second-round pick cornerback Brandon Cisse have signed. Green Bay\u2019s final draft choice in the 2026 class was kicker Trey Smack, who received $206,532 in guaranteed money, all in the form of a signing bonus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Yes, that means that Kelly actually received more in guarantees than a draft choice, and that both Gesky and Sturdivant were close to Smack\u2019s mark.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Money obviously shows the investment that the team has in a player, but it\u2019s also worth keeping in mind that the Packers were willing to burn $1 million for kicker Brandon McManus, who is now on the street, earlier this offseason, too. Kelly making a quarter million guaranteed doesn\u2019t mean that he\u2019s a roster lock, but it\u2019s worth keeping in mind that Green Bay is guaranteeing Kelly, Gesky and Sturdivant more than any undrafted rookie last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In total, the Packers guaranteed north of a million dollars in guarantees to its free agent class, almost double their 2025 amount. Per player, they guaranteed about $113,000 per undrafted free agent, compared to less than $48,000 last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">It also appears that Ingalls\u2019 numbers were just the players\u2019 guaranteed salaries, not their total guarantees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cap guru Ken Ingalls has reported some of the Green Bay Packers\u2019 top guarantees for their undrafted free&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":791779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[76232,19629,19631,56296,1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-791778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-green-bay-packers-depth-chart","9":"tag-green-bay-packers-news","10":"tag-green-bay-packers-roster","11":"tag-green-bay-packers-salary-cap","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116563382673237028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}