Packers make telling move with former first-round pick

Why?

The decision makes total sense because, since the 2020 CBA, the fifth-year option is fully guaranteed as soon as it is exercised. From 2011 to 2019, it was just guaranteed for injury.

The fifth-year option has four tiers (basic, playtime, one Pro Bowl, and multiple Pro Bowls). Stokes didn't reach the playing time threshold, so his basic fifth-year option as a cornerback would have been $12.472 million for 2025.

It doesn't mean Stokes can't be back with the Packers beyond this season. The cornerback is slated to make $2.286 million in 2024, with a $3.794 million cap hit. The team has the possibility to extend or eventually re-sign Stokes, or maybe even to apply a transition or franchise tag depending on how Stokes performs in 2024.

Up and down career

A first-round pick in 2021, Eric Stokes had a promising rookie season. Jaire Alexander got hurt and missed three fourths of that season, allowing Stokes to be the primary cornerback on the team.

However, he didn't play as well in 2022 and then suffered serious knee and ankle injuries in the middle of the season, which made him miss the second half of 2022 and, with subsequent issues, the first part of the 2023 season as well.

Stokes came back in 2023, but got hurt again (this time around, a hamstring injury) and missed more time. When he was able to play, the performance was not nearly as good as it had been in 2021.

After all, Eric Stokes played only 587 defensive snaps over the last two years — he had played 935 defensive snaps as a rookie.

Year after year, his performance has also been falling. His PFFs grades, for instance, have gotten progressively worse: 66.3 (67.6 in coverage) in 2021, 53.7 (60.3 in coverage) in 2022, and 51.5 (45.9 in coverage) in 2023.

Eric Stokes was the 29th overall pick in 2021, at the end of the first round — the fifth cornerback off the board, after Jaycee Horn, Patrick Surtain II, Caleb Farley, and Greg Newsome.

He went before cornerbacks like Tyson Campbell, Asante Samuel Jr, Ifeatu Melifonwu, and Elijah Molden, who were ahead of him on the consensus big board. The 56th player on the consensus board, Stokes was generally viewed as a reach, even though his rookie season gave the Packers confidence about their decision.