GREEN BAY, Wis. — Forget roster cuts; Brian Gutekunst has spent his Sunday wheeling and dealing.
The Green Bay Packers’ general manager has made three different trades as the team finalizes its initial 53-man roster. The Packers traded No. 3 quarterback Kyle McCord to the Miami Dolphins for a 2028 sixth-round pick, traded their own 2028 sixth-round pick to the Pittsburgh Steelers for running back Kaleb Johnson, and now traded for Los Angeles Rams tight end Mark Redman.
The compensation is unknown at the moment, but Redman couldn’t have been too costly. An undrafted free agent who spent the entirety of his 2025 rookie season on the Rams’ practice squad, Redman was going to have a hard time cracking the team’s loaded position group. They spent second-round picks on tight ends in back-to-back offseasons, drafting Terrance Ferguson and Max Klare, respectively. That’s not even including the projected starting tandem of Colby Parkinson and Tyler Higbee.
The Packers, meanwhile, are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Tucker Kraft is an otherworldly player at the position still blossoming into a potential All-Pro, but he’s coming off a season-ending torn anterior cruciate ligament. He’s no longer on a rep count in practice and is fully expecting to be available by the time the Packers take the field for the Sept. 13 opener against the Minnesota Vikings.
Behind Kraft is a whole lot of question marks. Luke Musgrave has been sidelined for all of training camp with a mysterious neck injury that will likely land him on injured reserve, Josh Whyle isn’t a dependable No. 2 at the position, and Jonnu Smith was recently signed to alleviate the woes. Smith at least reunites with head coach Matt LaFleur, who was with Smith in Tennessee in 2018 when he was the Titans’ offensive coordinator.
Redman, 24, projects perfectly as the Y tight end that Gutekunst has been pursuing all offseason. He made it abundantly clear after the draft that the role was one he had hoped to fill, but never had the opportunity to with the Packers’ selections. They had a brief experiment with Luke Lachey, but that didn’t go as planned after he failed his initial physical with the team in May.
The Louisville product caught five passes for 41 yards across the Rams’ three preseason games last year. This summer featured more of the same, with Redman bringing in six receptions for 63 yards. More notably, though, is his usage.
Of the 64 offensive snaps Redman was on the field for in the preseason, 58 of them featured him aligned as an inline tight end. Whether he was traded for or not, he’s almost guaranteed to play a significant role in the Packers’ offense this season; his skill set is a flavor that they don’t currently have in the room. Kraft can block efficiently, of course, but he’s best weaponized as a receiving threat.