There’s a funny thing that happens when NFL teams turn down the fifth-year extensions for players on their roster — especially high producing ones.
They don’t like it. At all. And it can lead to a lot of bad blood and bad faith between player and franchise. In the most basic terms, it’s the franchise’s way of telling a player: We don’t think you’re worth the money.
Such is the case of Green Bay Packers linebacker Quay Walker after his team turned down a fully guaranteed option for 2026 that would have paid Walker approximately$14.75 million despite the former first round pick racking up 341 tackles over his first 3 seasons.
The move by the Packers came on the same day they picked up the $13.922 million fifth-year option for defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt.
That might mean it’s time for a trade, and the Dallas Cowboys seem like a prime candidate in terms of both roster needs and the need to make a high profile move to bring in more top line talent.
What Deal for Walker Might Look Like for Cowboys
A deal for Walker might be pretty simple — try a 2026 second round pick and 2026 fifth round pick. That deal uses one of the 2 compensatory picks the Cowboys are scheduled to receive next year.
The Packers have signaled to the league they don’t think Walker is valuable enough to pay like a Top 10 inside linebacker, which he obviously is.
“We won’t deal with that until after the draft, but whatever mechanism we use, we’d like to keep those guys around for ’26 and beyond,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst told Packers.com about the fifth-year options for Walker and Wyatt. “So whether that’s through doing the fifth-year option on these guys or extending them one way or the other, we’re planning to do that. We’d like to do that.”
What Extension Might Look Like for Walker
Walker has had over 100 tackles in each of his first 3 seasons and did so in 2024 despite missing a career high 4 games due to injuries.
While an extension for Walker should put him in the Top 10 players at his position in terms of average annual salary, it’s OK to put him toward the lower end of that. In that case, a 4-year, $44 million offer from the Cowboys might do the trick.
Working against Walker are a series of high-profile incidents from his rookie season in 2022 that have had a lingering impact on his reputation. Walker was ejected from 2 games that season. The first, for shoving a practice player on the Buffalo Bills sideline in Week 8, might have been easily overlooked.
The second ejection, in a Week 18 game against the Detroit Lions, became a massive talking point after Walker shoved a member of Detroit’s athletic training staff as they tried to administer aid to an injured player.
More notable — somehow — was Walker’s childlike meltdown as he left the field following the ejection. It’s a moment that’s also continued to produce some incredible memes almost 3 years later.
The Cowboys are in desperate need of someone like Walker after linebacker DeMarvion Overshown suffered a catastrophic knee injury in Week 14 against the Cincinnati Bengals with a torn ACL, PCL and MCL. It’s the second major knee injury for Overshown in 3 years after he tore his ACL as a rookie in 2022.
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