At the NFL trade deadline, the Packers will act as sellers, not buyers

The Green Bay Packers enter the bye week at 6-3 and are a legitimate playoff contender in the NFC at the halfway point of the 2024 season.

At the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday, the Packers were sellers, not buyers.

General manager Brian Gutekunst made a trade, sending veteran edge rusher Preston Smith to the Pittsburgh Steelers in exchange for a seventh-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, which offset the draft capital the team lost in the team's trade for the Backup quarterback Malik Willis had lost the starter before the season.

Some outsiders viewed edge rusher as an area the Packers needed to add before the deadline. Instead, Gutekunst sold an aging, expensive and mostly unproductive part of the pass-rushing equation.

Smith will turn 32 in November, has been pressured just 10 times in nine games and is unlikely to be in Green Bay after the 2024 season. His transition from 3-4 outside linebacker to 4-3 defensive end didn't translate to good performance – an issue that many pass rushers in Green Bay struggle with. The trade creates valuable cap space in the short and long term while also opening up snaps for younger players at edge rusher like Lukas Van Ness and Kingsley Enagbare.

The Packers have made a point of giving young players the opportunity to get on the field in big roles. That meant moving away from older, experienced players and taking the risk of relying on young, inexperienced talent. This appears to be another case of the Packers opening the door to the young players on the roster.

Van Ness, a 2023 first-round pick, stands to benefit the most. He's suddenly a very important player for the Packers, who have Super Bowl aspirations but can't be considered a real title contender unless they have more pass-rush consistency at the top of defense.

Last year, the Packers were 3-6 and sellers and sent cornerback Rasul Douglas to the Buffalo Bills. This year, the Packers have a 6-3 record but remained sellers – suggesting that Gutekunst viewed selling an asset as having greater team-building value than buying an asset.

There's a compelling case to be made that the Packers need help at edge rusher or cornerback, even as the defense has made strides under first-year coordinator Jeff Hafley. But the Packers rarely make trade deadline deals, probably because they never wanted to risk overpaying — especially for a rental player — and so Gutekunst ended up being a seller again.

Losing Smith likely won't stop the Packers from competing for a title. But won't it be possible to add a piece within the deadline to address one of the potentially serious deficiencies on the Packers' roster in January? Time will tell. Like last year, the Packers need internal improvement from a young but talented roster to take Matt LaFleur's team from good to great in the second half of the 2024 season.

The story originally appeared on Packers Wire