Unless Green Bay is willing to pay a large price, don’t expect Savage — who has started for the Packers the last five seasons — to return in 2024.
The NFL scouting combine is not just about the prospects in the next NFL draft, but it is also an information exchange between front offices and representation as they prepare for free agency. With the majority of general managers and head coaches in Indianapolis for the event, there’s a reason why practically every agent, including those who don’t have players in the 2024 draft class, made the effort to attend. Sure, free agency doesn’t officially open for another week, but the talks about probable signings have already started—whether the league likes to admit it or not.
On Sunday, ESPN’s Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler discussed some of the stories they heard while in Indianapolis. One of the theories involves a well-known Green Bay Packers free agent, safety Darnell Savage.
In a section called “Sleeper free agents getting buzz?” Savage was one of ten players who made Fowler’s list. Here’s what Fowler said regarding safety:
Enough teams will like his first-round traits to give him a chance on a nice deal after he spent the past five seasons in Green Bay.
If you were expecting that the Packers, who are strangely thinner at safety entering the 2024 offseason than they were in 2023, would be able to re-sign Savage to a team-friendly contract, forget it. The 26-year-old defensive back has appeared in 72 games for Green Bay over the last five years, making 69 starts in the NFL. Last year, Savage earned $7.9 million in cash after the Packers exercised his fully guaranteed fifth-year option. In 2023, he appeared in 10 games, thanks in part to a calf ailment that kept him out for much of the season.
Spotrac has not yet projected a market value for Savage, but they have done so for seven of the other best safeties in 2024’s free agent crop. While we don’t know how much Savage will command on the open market, we do know that the Packers saved $4.1 million in cap space for 2024 by not extending Savage before the February 19th deadline to do so before his “void years” occurred. Previously, Green Bay’s head office moved Savage’s cap hits into the future in order to keep the roster they had in 2023.
Overall, it appears unlikely that Savage will stay a member of the Green and Gold going forward. With a crowded free agency market and a somewhat weak draft class at the position, it begs the question: how will the Packers pivot?
