In recent seasons in Eastern Wisconsin, there have not been many Packers players who would register as more popular than running back AJ Dillon, the team’s second-round pick back in 2020 out of Boston College. If personality and leadership meant employment in the NFL, Dillon would be a Packer for a long while.
He has not been shy about his love of Wisconsin and was even awarded the “key” to the state’s popular vacation area, Door County, where he and his wife Gabrielle have a residence. Coach Matt LaFleur even dubbed him “the mayor” because of Dillon’s popularity.
Alas, it turns out, you also need a certain level of productivity to keep a spot on a 53-man roster, and for Dillon, that just has not happened much lately.
Dillon averaged 5.3 years per carry back when he was a rookie, and 4.3 yards per carry in 2021. In his third season, that was 4.1 yards. But Dillon dropped to 3.4 yards per carry in 2023, and heading into 2024, his reputation as a short-yardage grinder took a hit.
Then, just before the start of the 2024 season, disaster struck: Dillon injured his neck, and was put on the season-long injured reserve.
AJ Dillon Facing Too Many Headwinds
Putting together the dropping production with Dillon’s injury and the fact that he was only on the team by the narrowest of margins to begin with–he signed an NFL veteran’s minimum $1.3 million contract–and Dillon has probably seen his time in Green Bay come to an end.
That’s the prediction from longtime team beat man Pete Dougherty, in his latest mailbag at PackersNews.com.
Asked about which players would be returning, Dougherty could not find a place for Dillon.
“As for Dillon,” he wrote, “his contract is up and, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t know why they’d re-sign him even at the NFL minimum. They have better, younger and cheaper in MarShawn Lloyd and Emanuel Wilson, and they also have Chris Brooks, who is a good special-teams player and was their third-down back last season.
“Time to move on from Dillon IMHO.”
Packers Could Also Change Up Offensive Line
Interestingly, the Packers are also projected, in Dougherty’s view, to lose another key piece of the rotation–2021 second-round pick Josh Myers, the team’s center.
The offensive line turned out to be a strength for Green Bay in 2024, ranked No. 6 among all lines in the league by Pro Football Focus. While the star is right tackle Zach Tom, the team got a surprising performance from second-year man Rasheed Walker at left tackle.
But Myers, a free agent, won’t be back, as Dougherty sees it.
He wrote: “I’m very much of the opinion they’re going to let Myers walk even though coach Matt LaFleur and Gutekunst had a lot of good things to say about him. Remember, Gutekunst said he expected Aaron Jones back last season, and that was not in the Packers’ plans, it’s just that they thought really highly of Jones and didn’t want to say anything publicly about what they were thinking.”
