Report: Packers S Darnell Savage will get ‘a nice deal’ in free agency

Unless Green Bay is willing to sign a big check, don’t assume that Savage — who has started for the team over the last 5 seasons — will be back in 2024.

As much as the NFL scouting combine is about the prospects in the upcoming NFL draft, it’s also an information exchange between front offices and representation heading into free agency. With most general managers and head coaches in Indianapolis for the event, there’s a reason why almost every agent — even ones who don’t have players in the 2024 draft class — went out of their way to make the combine. Sure, free agency doesn’t officially start for another week, but the conversations about possible signings have already started — whether the league wants to admit it or not.

On Sunday, ESPN’s Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler detailed some of the rumors that they were told during their time in Indianapolis. One of those rumors involves a prominent Green Bay Packers free agent: safety Darnell Savage.

In a section titled “Sleeper free agents getting buzz?” Savage was one of ten players to make the cut on Fowler’s list. Here’s what Fowler had to say about the 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 hoping that the Packers, who are somehow thinner at safety going into the 2024 offseason than they were in 2023, were going to be able to re-sign Savage to a team-friendly deal, throw that idea out of the window. The 26-year-old defensive back has played 72 games for Green Bay over the last five years and has made 69 starts in his NFL career. Last year, due to the Packers picking up his fully guaranteed fifth-year option, Savage was able to haul in $7.9 million in cash. He played in 10 games in 2023, in part because he missed a large portion of the season due to a calf injury.

At the moment, Spotrac has not given Savage a market value projection, which they have done for seven of the other top safeties in 2024’s free agency crop. While we don’t know how much Savage is going to command on the open market, what we do know is that the Packers assumed $4.1 million in cap space on their 2024 books by not extending Savage before their February 19th deadline to do so before his “void years” triggered. Previously, Green Bay’s front office pushed Savage’s cap hits into the future to keep together the team that they rostered in 2023.

All in all, it seems unlikely that Savage will remain a member of the Green and Gold moving forward. In a competitive free agent market at the position and a fairly weak draft class at the position, it does beg the question: How will the Packers pivot?