At some point during Muhammad Wilkerson's free-agent visit with the Green Bay Packers earlier this month, Mike McCarthy asked him what might have seemed like an unusual question coming from someone who was about to begin his 13th season as an NFL head coach.
The conversation, according to McCarthy, went like this:
"I said, 'Hey, we don't ever do this; how we doing?' " McCarthy recalled this week at the NFL annual meetings in Orlando, Florida.
"He said, 'How the hell do I know? I've never done it, either.'
"I said, 'Well, good. Why don't we do the deal and get the hell out of here?' We just laughed."
They got a deal done, but it wasn't until after Wilkerson made three more free-agent visits. Then, he signed a one-year, $5 million deal to try to resurrect a once-promising career with the Packers. He was cut by the New York Jets just two seasons into a five-year, $86 million contract.
It was one of two free-agent signings that might be considered out of the norm compared to the way the Packers did business for most of McCarthy's first 12 seasons as coach -- all of which were under Ted Thompson as general manager; tight end Jimmy Graham was the other. To be sure, the Packers still have plenty of holes on their roster that went unfilled during the early portion of free agency, but new GM Brian Gutekunst has at least started to change the way the Packers operate in the marketplace.
"Free agency, we're going to be really good at it," McCarthy said, "because we should be."
McCarthy cited the facilities in and around Lambeau Field as one of the top attractions to players, while Gutekunst says he believes it's the perfect place for "players who love the game of football."
"I think when they come to Green Bay, despite how much snow is on the ground, they understand how important it is to us and how much of the resources we put into our club," Gutekunst told reporters in Orlando. "I think those guys see that right away, and that's really important for us as we try to acquire players, too, is to find guys like that. If guys are looking for the beach or nightlife or things like that, that's not really necessarily the kind of guy we're looking for. We're looking for guys who are fully invested in the team, and guys who are wired that way."
It's debatable whether Gutekunst's roster-building techniques can be defined as "aggressive" -- a word he used at the scouting combine -- but perhaps a better word for what he has done, which also included trading former first-round pick Damarious Randall to the Browns for quarterback DeShone Kizer, is "active." That's how team president Mark Murphy put it.
"We're participating in things that we haven't in the past," Murphy said. "We're not going to sign everybody, and obviously with the salary cap there's limitations, but I think he's looking at every avenue to try to improve the team. Obviously time will tell. We've made a couple major decisions, both in terms of releasing some players or allowing players to leave in free agency, and then obviously a few signings and a trade as well. But I'm very pleased with what Brian has been doing."
Murphy, too, has been more involved in the football side -- even if it's just to make sure communication flows better -- now that he's overseeing McCarthy, Gutekunst and director of football operations Russ Ball.
Whatever the Packers think they have to sell to free agents, it almost always comes down to money before anything else. Few, if any players, are going to take a discount deal just to play in Green Bay.
In that regard, two glaring holes remain: cornerback and outside linebacker. High-priced cornerbacks flew off the market in the early days of free agency. The Packers made an attempt when they signed Kyle Fuller, who carried the transition tag, to an offer sheet (four years, $56 million) that the Bears matched.
"That particular player was rated very high for us," Gutekunst said. "They put the transition tag on him, so we went down some other avenues. After we got through a certain period of free agency and we didn't feel there was a risk of tying those resources up for the time we'd have to tie them up, we thought it made sense to maybe go into that. I think Russ did a really good job of structuring it in a way that may make it difficult for them, with the understanding we knew it was a low-percentage chance.
"But we knew the whole time, especially being within the division, that there was probably a small chance that we'd actually acquire the player."
No one has more draft picks next month than the Packers' 12, and in the Kizer-Randall trade, they were able to move up in the fourth and fifth round by swapping picks with the higher-drafting Browns. Plus, Gutekunst, his top advisers, Jon-Eric Sullivan and John Wojciechowski, along with the rest of the pro personnel scouts have a ready-list of veteran players who might become available later in the offseason.
"I'm excited about what Brian's doing in the personnel department; Jon-Eric Sullivan, Woj, those guys are pumping it," McCarthy said. "Just the conversations and bringing those guys in, even if we don't sign anybody, that's 15 players that have now gone, hey, you might want to take a look at Green Bay. We have so much to sell, so much to offer. That's been exciting for everybody. I know the coaches, it's been awesome. Coaches want to talk football, they want to engage players and particularly if you have a history with a guy. It's all about building that 90-man roster, the most competitive 90-man roster. That part's been great, brings a ton of energy."