{"id":889511,"date":"2026-05-12T20:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/889511\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:27:17","slug":"packers-udfa-has-more-guaranteed-money-than-draft-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/889511\/","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":2,"featured_media":889512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,2703,2702,2704,3424],"class_list":["post-889511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-green-bay-packers-depth-chart","tag-green-bay-packers-news","tag-green-bay-packers-roster","tag-green-bay-packers-salary-cap"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116563492437004098","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}