The Green Bay Packers spent big to fix their interior offensive line last year. CBS Sports’ Garrett Podell isn’t sure they got their money’s worth.
Podell named Packers left guard Aaron Banks to his NFL All-Overpaid Team for 2026, singling out the interior offensive lineman as one of the league’s least cost-effective players.
The contract is what put Banks on the radar. Green Bay signed him to a four-year, $77 million deal with $27 million fully guaranteed in March 2025, making him the ninth-highest-paid guard in football at $19.25 million per year.
CBS Sports Names Aaron Banks to Its All-Overpaid Team
Podell’s issue isn’t the sacks. It’s everything around them.
“Aaron Banks’ sack rate wasn’t terrible, just three allowed in 312 pass-blocking snaps, but he did surrender 23 quarterback pressures in 2025,” Podell wrote. “Pro Football Focus handed Banks a 56.5 offensive grade, which ranked 55th out of the 79 qualified offensive guards they graded. However, that’s not quite the production you’d like to see out of the NFL’s ninth-highest-paid guard in terms of average per year salary at $19.25 million.”
Podell also flagged Banks’ health, noting the guard has been sidelined in camp with knee tendinitis that flares up during football activity, with no clear return date.
His conclusion was blunt.
“General manager Brian Gutekunst’s recent, aggressive approach to free agency is a breath of fresh air for long-time Packers fans, but this deal may have been a whiff,” Podell wrote.
Aaron Banks’ Injury and Roster Battle Deepen the Concern
The overpaid label follows a rough first year in Green Bay. Banks arrived from the San Francisco 49ers, where he’d started 43 games and posted strong pass-blocking numbers, but his debut season with the Packers was derailed by back, ankle and groin injuries that limited him to 14 starts and inconsistent play when he was on the field.
Now his situation has only gotten murkier. Banks is dealing with knee tendinitis that, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tom Silverstein, flares up anytime he makes strenuous football movements. He has been limited to individual drills for most of camp and didn’t play in the preseason opener, and LaFleur pointedly declined to say whether Banks had a procedure on the knee over the summer.
That has opened the door for a rookie. Fifth-round pick Jager Burton has taken first-team reps in Banks’ absence, and head coach Matt LaFleur wouldn’t commit to giving Banks his job back.
“I think [Burton’s] gonna make it extremely difficult,” LaFleur said, per Yahoo Sports. “I think Jager has done a really good job.”
Banks, for his part, has stayed confident about his timeline.
“I should be out there full go by the end of camp for sure,” Banks said, per Forbes. “Like, I have no concerns for the start of the season.”
Whatever happens, Green Bay is essentially locked in. The Packers restructured Banks’ contract in March, converting salary into a signing bonus and pushing cap charges into future years. That move makes him nearly impossible to move on from before 2028, with a dead-cap figure north of $36 million if they tried.
In other words, the Packers need the Banks label to be wrong. They committed real money to protect Jordan Love up front, then doubled down by restructuring the deal. Now they need a healthy Banks to play like the guard they paid for, not the one CBS just put on its overpaid list.
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