Packers sign Luke Musgrave & Alex McGough ahead of start of training camp

The Green Bay Packers made a trio of roster moves on Wednesday, getting their roster ready for the start of training camp. The two transactions that involve new contracts were unsurprising, as the team finally inked a draft pick to his rookie deal and made official a move that was reported a day earlier.

First up is the draft pick, Luke Musgrave. The 42nd overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, Musgrave is now under contract as the Packers and other teams around the NFL have been slow to sign players drafted in the second round. Guaranteed money has largely been the sticking point for players drafted in that range this year, and although details of Musgrave’s contract have not yet been reported, the deal will likely have at least some portion of his base salaries guaranteed.

For comparison, the Detroit Lions drafted defensive back Brian Branch three picks after the Packers selected Musgrave, and Branch just signed his rookie deal in the last few days. His contract came with base salaries totaling roughly $5 million, but the Lions guaranteed more than half of that amount in addition to a $2.8 million signing bonus. Likewise, Saints defensive end Isaiah Foskey was the 40th pick and got $3.379 million guaranteed of his $5.38 million in base salaries over the course of the deal. By extrapolating between those two, Musgrave could likely expect to have about 60% of his bases guaranteed, which would come to about $3.19 million of the $5.31 million in base salary specified by the NFL’s rookie wage scale.

Green Bay now has just one other unsigned draft pick with Musgrave in the fold. That is the team’s other second-round pick, wide receiver Jayden Reed out of Michigan State. Expect him to come to terms before the team starts training camp practices next Wednesday.

In addition to signing Musgrave, the Packers also inked a deal with quarterback Alex McGough, formally adding him to the roster after his successful workout this week. McGough, the MVP of the USFL in 2023, gives the Packers a fourth quarterback for training camp and should get a real chance to compete with Sean Clifford and Danny Etling for the backup job behind Jordan Love.

The Packers had a USFL success story last year as well, as the team signed safety Micah Abernathy early in training camp and saw him make the opening 53-man roster out of camp. He was released and moved to the practice squad almost immediately thereafter, but he did appear in a pair of regular season games for Green Bay during the season before the Atlanta Falcons signed him off the Packers’ practice squad late in December.

While Musgrave counted on the Packers’ 90-man roster already due to his status as a draft pick, the team did need to make room for McGough. With the third transaction of the day, the Packers freed up that roster spot by waiving center DJ Scaife. A right tackle and guard for the University of Miami, Scaife originally signed with the Miami Dolphins in May but was released a few days later, landing with the Packers later on that month.