Green Bay Packers Open Camp Paying Devonte Wyatt and Counting Down to Micah Parsons

Training camp is here, and the Green Bay Packers open it with their best defensive player on crutches-adjacent duty and their checkbook suddenly in the headlines. Rookies and injured players reported to Green Bay on Monday, July 27, veterans arrive Tuesday, and the first practice at Ray Nitschke Field kicks off Wednesday, July 29, at 10:30 a.m. The dominant Green Bay Packers news of the week was a split screen: Devonte Wyatt signing a three-year extension on one side, and the franchise announcing its first operating loss in recent memory on the other — all while everyone in Wisconsin counts the days until Micah Parsons' surgically rebuilt knee is ready sometime in October.

The Parsons and Kraft Countdown

Everything about Green Bay's 2026 season bends around two rehab timelines. Parsons tore the ACL and meniscus in his left knee on December 14 against Denver, had surgery on December 29, and has said himself he doesn't expect medical clearance to practice until around the nine-month mark in late September. The practical math: he opens the season on the PUP list, misses at least the first four games, and realistically returns somewhere between mid-October and Week 7. The cost of his absence is not theoretical — Green Bay went 0-5 after he went down, got outscored 130-73 in that stretch, and turned a 9-3-1 season into a first-round exit.

Tight end Tucker Kraft's news is better. His ACL tear came earlier (November 2), which puts his nine-month mark in late August. He may technically open camp on the PUP list, but he has said he expects to play Week 1 with no limitations, and reporting through the summer has him trending toward full clearance. Elsewhere on the rehab ledger: right tackle Zach Tom (patellar tendon) should be ready for the regular season, Wyatt is fully back from a broken fibula and ankle ligament damage, and defensive lineman Jordon Riley (Achilles, torn December 27) may miss most or all of 2026.

Money Moves: Wyatt Paid, and a Rare Operating Loss

The Wyatt extension was the week's biggest transaction: three years, $57 million with a $20 million signing bonus, signed July 20. Given how badly the defense cratered when he and Parsons went down, paying the interior rusher who grades among the league's best in pass-rush and run-stop metrics is defensible even with his injury history — it's structured like a prove-it deal with real money attached. It follows a one-year extension for linebacker and special-teams stalwart Isaiah McDuffie on July 12 and Christian Watson's four-year deal from early June, with Kraft widely expected to be next in line.

Then there's the corporate side, which is uniquely Green Bay: as the only publicly owned team in the league, the Packers publish their books, and this year's showed an operating loss of $1.1 million on $752.8 million in revenue — down from an $83.7 million profit the year before, with expenses just outpacing income. CEO Ed Policy's message around the annual shareholders meeting was blunt: other owners have "access to this ATM machine that we just don't have." He voiced support for an eventual 18-game season and floated naming rights for parts of the Titletown campus — though emphatically not for Lambeau Field itself. The corporate reserve fund still sits north of $700 million, so nobody needs a telethon. But the framing of a competitive financial gap is new, and worth filing away.

A Roster That Lost More Than It Added

The skeptics' case writes itself, and Forbes wrote it this week: Green Bay lost Rashan Gary, Quay Walker, Romeo Doubs, Elgton Jenkins, Kingsley Enagbare, Emanuel Wilson and kicker Brandon McManus this offseason, and replaced that snap volume with Javon Hargrave, Zaire Franklin, Benjamin St-Juste and Skyy Moore. Add just six draft picks — tied for the smallest class in franchise history — a schedule rated third-toughest in the league by opponent winning percentage, and a division where Chicago just beat them in January, and you get the argument that this team misses the playoffs. The counter is that Jordan Love's efficiency numbers sat in the league's top ten last year, the offense returns nearly every meaningful weapon, and the defense gets Parsons back for the stretch run. Both things can be true; that's what makes this camp interesting.

Camp Battles and Players to Watch

With veterans in the building this week, here's where the actual competition lives:

• Kicker — sixth-round rookie Trey Smack is the favorite to replace McManus, whose two misses in the Wild Card loss still sting.
• Center — Sean Rhyan, freshly rewarded with a three-year deal, slides inside from guard and has to prove he can run the protections.
• Left tackle — Jordan Morgan takes over full-time on Love's blind side.
• Edge — with Gary and Enagbare gone and Parsons shelved until October, second-year rusher Barryn Sorrell has a wide-open runway.
• Receiver — 2025 first-rounder Matthew Golden eyes a year-two breakout with Doubs' targets up for grabs; UDFA J. Michael Sturdivant is a name to know.
• Cornerback — rookie Brandon Cisse, 21, will push for immediate snaps.
• Tight end — Luke Musgrave gets one more shot at relevance while Kraft ramps up.

How 2025 Ended, in One Painful Paragraph

The context for all of it: the Packers were 9-3-1 and humming when Parsons went down in mid-December, lost their final four regular-season games to stumble in at 9-7-1 as the No. 7 seed, then led Chicago 21-3 at halftime of the Wild Card game at Soldier Field — and lost 31-27 on January 11 as Caleb Williams threw three fourth-quarter touchdowns. Love played well that day (323 yards, four touchdowns), Romeo Doubs caught eight balls for 124 yards in his Packers farewell, and McManus missed twice. It was Green Bay's third straight one-and-done-or-worse January under Matt LaFleur, whose playoff record now sits at 3-6 — and whose regular-season winning percentage has slid from .759 across his first three seasons to .535 since. Forbes also noted the Packers blew double-digit leads in the final four minutes three separate times last season, losing all three. Nobody's seat is officially warm in July. But another late-season collapse would change that conversation fast.

What's Next on the Green Bay Packers Calendar

The next month, in order:

• July 29-31 — first open practices at Ray Nitschke Field
• Friday, Aug. 7 — Family Night at Lambeau Field, practice at 7:30 p.m.
• Thursday, Aug. 13 — preseason opener at Pittsburgh (6 p.m. CT)
• Friday, Aug. 21 — preseason at Denver (8 p.m. CT)
• Wednesday, Aug. 26 — joint practice with Arizona, followed by the preseason finale vs. the Cardinals at Lambeau on Aug. 28
• Sunday, Sept. 13 — season opener at Minnesota, 3:25 p.m. CT on CBS

The regular season brings six prime-time games, a Thanksgiving Eve trip to Los Angeles, a Christmas Day date in Chicago on Netflix, a Week 11 bye, and a season-ending matchup with Detroit that could carry real weight in a crowded NFC North.

So that's the shape of Green Bay Packers news as camp opens: a team good enough to start 9-3-1 a year ago, wounded enough to lose five straight after that, and now betting it can tread water without its superstar until October. The first month of practices will decide the kicker job, the offensive line alignment, and how seriously to take the pass rush in the meantime. Wednesday at Nitschke Field, we start finding out.