#281 Packers Unscripted: Draft preview

I guess you might say, as far as the Green Bay Packers are concerned, and I know the fans are very anxious, very curious to see what the Packers are going to do on the defensive side of the ball in this upcoming draft, and a lot of talk is about pass rushers and cornerbacks. Do you have a priority list, so to speak, in terms of the positions and how the Packers go about this or what's your view of the approach. That's a great question, Mike. I guess my

approach to this would be go pass rusher early. I'm not saying that has to be at fourteen, but the Packers also pick at forty five. So I just think in the first two rounds you gotta get a pass rusher. And the reason I say that is it's not necessarily even because it's like, well you have to replace Clay Matthews or Nick Perry. You just got to add to that rotation. You gotta get deeper there. I think Reggie

Gilbert's a really fine young prospect. You know, adding Vince Biegel last year was good, but then he got hurt Um. They just need more options there because it's not just what you can do on the boundary, it's it's how you can be used in other ways too, in the sub packages and rushing inside like they did with Julius Peppers.

So for me, that's an emphasis. And in hearing what people have said about this draft class, I think there's some really solid prospects we already outlined some of them that can be had probably in those first fifty picks. And again i'm Wes hot Cooits not my title to b GM, but I just think that this is a really good opportunity for the Packers to potentially add another edge rusher into that equation. Yeah, and we'll see if

the thoughts change over the next several weeks. But the other thing that we're hearing is that a lot of drafts experts saying, as far as the edge rusher type of position goes, not a whole lot of depth in this draft class. Last year, I believe it was somewhere in the neighborhood of seventeen to twenty total edge rushers were drafted over the course of the of the seven rounds. They're not talking about that type of depth at at

that position in this draft. So if you like one and he's there early when you pick, you might need to get him because I don't know if a guy like a Vince Bagel is going to be there on Day three. Yeah, and there's there's some analysis that Brian good Constant is his scouts are going to have to run in terms of trying to calculate the value of these guys. Who's looking at which players where these guys could potentially fall, because this is an opportunity to pick

at fourteen. Uh, and you don't want to overdraft a guy just because you need somebody at that position. You want to be able to find the right fit. Unfortunately, to my on my eye, and again one man's opinion here, But it doesn't seem like cornerback is a spot either that fourteen just has a guy that's screaming to be taken inside that that mark there just isn't someone of

that level. I don't think good prospects, but probably a little bit more on the deeper side than what edge Rusher is in terms of where you could get a potential playmaker. The Packers have had success before finding those kind of guys in the middle rounds could go and we'll talk about the certainly offense is certainly on the

table as well. I just think, as we've talked about during this whole process, picking that early that they're gonna be you know, have a lot less projection and I don't want to call it a guestimation in terms of who's going to be available at like let's say it changes the game for and good ocunts. But it also is something you have to keep in mind too, is that you want to make sure you get the right

value there. So whether that's trading, whether that's finding player there, it's gonna be an interesting game the Packers will have to play. Yeah, and we'll see you mentioned the cornerback position and obviously it depends on who's available and and how the draft falls in those first thirteen picks, then when the Packers are on the clock at pick number fourteen. But just an illustration of where the league is headed, um and and really what what team's value right now.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if for the third time in the last four years, Damarius Randall Kevin King that the Packers potentially use their first pick again three times in four years at the cornerback spot, wouldn't surprise me at all. Well, there's a reason why we're talking, Mike about quarterbacks getting thirty million dollars a year now, and it's because it's a pass oriented league and that's where everything starts. You need to have guys they're gonna

be able to combat that. Packers had a lot of success for a number of years, and not to say they're not doing it now, but where they found the Sam Shields of the world. You know, an undrafted free agency, you had a guy like Trumont Williams gets signed over after spending time on the Houston Texans practice squad to become a Pro Bowl cornerback. They signed you know, Charles Woodson, who is at at that point not really a downturn, but really hadn't been the kind of player that he

sort of made his name on. So I don't want to say the Packers got lucky, but they really lightning struck quite a few times in a row, and they had a lot of success with it in the defense thrived. It's getting more difficult to find that though, because with how spread out these defenses are getting, teams need four capable cornerbacks at any given time. It's not just a

two corner league anymore. And I think for that reason, you see teams, not just the Green Bay Packers, having to use those early round draft picks to find a guy that'll fit in because in most cases, Mike, they're going to have to play as a rookie. Yeah, and then you know, you have just one or two injuries and suddenly you're going to the fifth and the sixth cornerback on your roster against against those dime packages, and yeah, it's it really is the position where you can never

have enough, not enough, and not enough versatility is all right? Well, with that, we're going to toss to a breakback with more and Packers unscripted right after this Welcome back to Packers unscripted Mike Spofford right here West Hodko, WIT's all the way over there west, offensive side of the ball here. In terms of a draft preview for the Packers, there's a long term need I think at wide receiver we've

talked about, you know, who's the next Jordy Nelson. Can the Packers find that kind of guy in this draft to pair with Davante Adams? Maybe long term tight end, a position the Packers have right now as of as of the time we're taping this episode, have only Lance Kendricks an Emmanuel Bird under contract at the position offensive guard. The jr R. Evans situation. Don't know at this point if he's coming back or not. The Packers may have

an open starting spot there. I think the one position the Packers maybe aren't aren't necessarily concerned about offensively um in this draft is running back. Because of the three picks taken last year. You also have the backup quarterback situation, and it will some competition be brought in for for Brett Humley. Of something Mike McCarthy indicated at the combine he'd like to do. What do you see as uh,

you know, do you have a priority? You know, have you prioritized the list on the offensive side of the ball here? Well, here's the thing, Mike, and I know I I caught some flak from fans due to my viewpoints on s Kwon Barclay before the combine. I am a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong, and I'll say this is Kwon Barkley is there at fourteen? That is rather enticing. I know he had the intangibles,

That's why everybody was asking about it. And I got into this big fight about well, then he's not a top five player anymore. But here's the thing that combine he put together. He's not going to be there. So the question really becomes Mike with probably I would guess at least three maybe four quarterbacks being taken before number fourteen, who's going to fall heredeed? I mean, because you can't take them all. Somebody's got to be available at four teens.

So you know, where does Quentin Nelson come off the board? Where you know, although there isn't really a big receiver prospect this year, that's like demanding top five, top ten attention. There are some good ones in this draft. Class as well. And then also depending on how patient you are, what you want to you know, really prioritize. There's some good tight end prospects that you and I have really talked

about as well. So to me outside looking in, it just seems like that fourteenth pick, that first round pick is destined to be defense. But there are enough offensive players available in those first fifteen to twenty picks that Brian Goodkins is gonna have a lot of things to consider as well. Yeah, and when you look at, obviously how the rest of the draft lays out, the Packers have their picks in the first three rounds, and then on the third day of the draft, rounds four through seven,

they're gonna be nine selections. I mean, I see the Packers in one in some way, shape or form, addressing

offensive line, tight end, wide receiver. You know, we'll talk a little bit later on about just how many picks maybe we think the Packers are gonna actually end up making with regards to twelve, but there are a lot of there are a lot of spots to fill here and uh and you know, you look at the quarterback position, Like I said, Brett Honley was a fifth round pick, a few years ago, Mike McCarthy talked about wanting to

bring in more competition. We don't know if that's going to come through free agency with signing a veteran to compete with Hunley for the backup job, or if the Packers are going to invest another draft pick in a quarterback and and let him duke it out with Hunley for preseason playing time and and see who really should be the number two guy in Yeah, and then that's kind of a little bit of a puzzle to a little bit of a catch twenty two as well, because

you kind of have to decide what you're looking for then if you go back into the draft, because if you d have a guy that's strictly based on potential and upside, it's gonna be tough for that young man to really push Brett Huntley for that job in year one. Maybe down the road could become a viable option. But then do you look at maybe a Matt Flynn type quarterback who had ample experience could potentially push him. But what's his upside? What has hit the long game with him?

That's a question the package will have to answer. You mentioned the offensive line, Really there was only one time in Ted Thompson's tenure as GM, they didn't draft an offensive lineman was two thousand and fifteen, and it really came back to bite them. It was a mistake. You definitely want to keep that going because when you have to have five of those guys on the field at all times, you don't have another option. You have to

have guys that could potentially fit into different spots. Everybody that they've taken recently Michael and then some of the guys that they haven't that have come in a street free agents like Justin McCrae, have had to play multiple positions behind that starting offensive line. Those guys are playing

a thousand snaps a season. It's tough. Not everybody's gonna do what Corey Linsley did this year, going pillar to post the entire season, being able to stay on the field and then from the receiver position, just briefly to touch on that. I don't know what the Packers plans are there. Certainly you have things that determined to figure out what Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb and the like, But it has been sometimes since the Packers have really taken

a receiver. I think, if you correct me, if I'm wrong, it is it two thousand two with with Trevor Davis Davison throwned out of Cow. Yeah, so early rounds, could you be looking at that again like they did in two thousand and four team with Davante Adams something to consider as well. But certainly with those twelve picks, and we'll get into the shortly, it gives them different options if they want to move up, if there's a guy they like, and certainly if they want to stand pat

they're gonna end up with a lot of prospects as well. Yeah, we've talked obviously about the success at the wide receiver position finding guys in the second round. You know, Jennings Nelson, Cobb, Adams, James Jones was a third round pick. You know, the

way things look. You know, I don't know what's going to happen contract wise right now with Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb, but it just seems to me that, you know, if there's a received or prospect there that you see as potentially the next Davante Adams are the next Jordy Nelson, I gotta believe the Packers are going to pull the trigger and set the set up Aaron Rodgers for you know the four and five and six years beyond here that that would coincide with the extension they just gave

to Davante Adam. It's the mirror match we talked about the cornerbacks, right, you need four of them, five of them. It is the same thing with the receivers because as we saw this past season with Geroni Wilson the game he had against the Cincinnati Bengals, You're gonna need to turn to different guys at different times, and then those guys have to be ready for that moment. All right.

With that, we'll throw to a break back with more on Packers Unscripted right after this, Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford in this chair, West Hodkowits in that one, Okay, West. So everybody's wondering who exactly is going to be there for the Packers at pick in the first round. And of course, if we knew that, we wouldn't be sitting here. I don't think we have other things to do. But um, I've said this before and coming back from the combine

did not change my feeling on this. It really it all comes down to these quarterbacks. There are four quarterbacks being talked about as being drafted in the first round, Josh Allen from Wyoming, Sam Donald from USC, Josh Rosen from u C. L A. And Baker Mayfield from Oklahoma. If there's a run on quarterbacks with these teams at the top of the draft where they're trying to making sure that they get their guy, and maybe there will

even be some trades and some jockeying for position and whatnot. Essentially, when you're not in the market for a first round cornerback, a quarterback, excuse me, which the Packers are not. All of a sudden, the fourteenth overall pick looks like the tenth overall pick in essence, when you take take those quarterbacks,

um and in those in those spots. But if those quarterbacks don't go in the top half of the first round, everything changes in terms of in terms of teams taking that you know, best player available and not just drafting the quarterback because that's the guy they really really need. Quarterbacks of the guys who always dictate how these how these first rounds of the draft can go, Yeah, absolutely, because you're gonna get guys that if you put them

up on a board. As far as they're grade. They might not necessarily be a top five or top ten, or even a first round pick in some cases, but yet they're the top at their position, or they're at the top available at that position. In teams general managers, there's pressure right from the moment that you get a job if if you're going into a situation where the quarterback position is unsettled, that's your number one objective, and you look at right now the position a lot of

these guys are in. I think I think last year with Ryan Pace and what the Chicago Bears did is sort of really emblematic of how much of a struggle this is to find the man. I mean, they're trading up one spot, they're trading draft picks, they're trading assets to move up for a guy that very well might have been there if they just waited for fifteen minutes. Now he might not have, but he very well could have.

And and and Pace just wasn't willing to take the chance because he was sold on the fact that Mitch Rubisky was was the quarterback of the future for the Chicago Bears, and he was going to he was going to get him come hell or high water, and I think it's also the defining moment on the other side of it too. I think John Lynch really got his you know sprinted out of the gate with those moves, being able to move back and then trading a second rounder for Jimmy Garoppolo. So, uh, this is the game

that teams have to play. Not to keep bringing that up, but I mean this is ultimately Mike the game within the actual game in terms of trying to figure out how all of these things are gonna play out, because it's really just the giant, massive game of poker. Guys are holding their cards. Stuff gets leaked out, you know, so and so is looking at this guy or this team or whatever. We don't really know until that draft

night happens. But the one thing the constant is, and you can skinny GM in the NFL about this, the more picks you have, the more real opportunity there is to make sure you get the most value out of those picks, whether it's moving up, moving back, or staying

where you are. Yeah, And the one thing we're not hearing so much about, and again, the draft is what seven weeks away, so a lot of things can change, but we're not hearing so much about the these franchise left tackle types necessarily like up in the top ten. So when you look at Orlando Brown helped with that. But yeah, yeah, that that was certainly a factor. So you look at this, if if you got the four quarterbacks, you know, se Kwan Barkley is going to be picked,

most likely Quentin Nelson, the guard from Notre Dame. He's really considered the top offensive lineman in the entire draft if he if if he is picked, and then the only the only other one. Yeah, you you mentioned at wide receiver. There is some talk about the Bears at number eight because they have such a glaring need at wide receiver that maybe they would take Calvin Ridley from

Alabama that high. So if all of that happens, that's I believe seven guys that I've rattled off, the four quarterbacks, the guard, the running back, and the wide receiver. So in essence, if you're if you're looking at defensive guys, the Packers could get a guy who's really one of

the top seven or eight defensive players in this entire draft. That's, uh, you know, that's very attractive, But again, you just don't know how it's necessarily going to fall, And as you talked about, that's how it happened in two thousand nine, that's how b j Rogi ultimately fell into their lap. I I kind of jumped over there, But I really would be very surprised if either Fitzpatrick or James are are available at four teen. Yeah, I was those guys

are coming off the board then too. And if Hurst doesn't have out of Michigan doesn't have the heart condition, I think he was pretty much locked in to be a top ten or top twelve guy. So who's still there and in seeing exactly we can talk until we get blue in the face about certain prospects. Inevitably there's somebody who falls on draft night for one reason or another that sometimes we know. Sometimes it's it's known why this guy potentially his stock is falling. Sometimes we don't.

Sometimes it just happens because the medical test don't get out there in the media, things don't get leaked. So that's the fascinating part of this to watch, And for the packers, there were so many years where they just had to wait where all these dominoes were falling to actually start to make heads and tails of this thing. This year. It's gonna happen a lot earlier. Yeah, you're in a different spot for sure. With that, we'll toss to a break back with more on Packers Unscripted right

after this. Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford next to West had Quitz. Okay, Wes. This is its final segment here before a bit of a break and then we will kind of match my plane down to the door. The Packers are going into this with twelve picks. You've got your one pick in every round, that seven four compensatory picks, an extra fourth to extra fifths and an extra sixth and then an extra seventh because of the

Laurenti McCray trade from a couple of years ago. So twelve picks, that's a lot of that's a lot of selections to potentially make. There could be some trades here and there. How many picks do you think the Packers will actually make? I bet they make ten? Is okay? So you're thinking some trades up. I wonder if if for no other reason, I wonder if Brian Goodkins is going to do with Ted Thompson always did, And that's make sure you don't actually have to pick in the

seventh round. Thompson. That was actually one thing that very quietly he did during his reign as gm UH. He always seemed to part with those seventh round picks. And if you follow the game close enough, one of the reasons you do that is because it allows you sometimes to get a head start on the undrafted free Yeah, you're work. You're working the phones with those undrafted guys and trying to convince them to sign as soon as

the draft ends. So it's sometimes, I think, can be kind of a weight and counterbalanced thing of trying to figure out which guys you're gonna have a real legitimate chance at getting and which guys you're not. The Packers drafted Jeff Janis with their seventh rounder and fourteen because I think one of the thought processes was it wasn't a lock that they were going to be able to get him as a uf A. So that's that's something

to keep in mind. But the one thing Thompson always that he always threw those in when all these deals, I mean, go back and look at how many seventh round picks the Patriots probably got out of the Packers over the years, with all the deals that Belichick and Thompson swung, so I bet they end up with ten. I thought the best comment out of the combine came

from John Schneider. Now they don't have a second and third round this year, I believe last year they didn't have a first round, and he mentioned just how challenging that is, how it really shifts everything is for terms of your philosophy. He he likes the challenge. He said, it allows you to makes you get a little more more creative with how you're gonna make this all work. But he comes from that round wolf Tree and the fewer swings at the bat you have, the fewer chances

you have for a hit. And this isn't an average base league. It's a hit basically, and you've got to find guys and this is a big opportunity I think for Brian Couducus, and even hearing him talk about it, he's excited about it. Yeah, and so you say ten picks, I'm gonna say eleven. I think I think he's going to I think there's going to be some maneuvering and we may see multiple trades both up and back. But I have I have a feeling, I just I just

don't see them necessarily taking twelve players. But I'm not sure they're going to be enough trades up to end up with only like nine or ten, So I guess I'll say eleven, just to be a little different. I would be absolutely stunned if the Packers just drafted twelve players and all and stayed, stayed and all. Yeah, there's I don't see that was in Thompson's way. For as much as people think he was conservative, he moved around

a lot. There was one draft I remember, and I can't remember that was the one he stayed at every spot, and it was everybody was just stunned, like, how come there are underny trades but in those personnel departments, I expected to move a little bit, all right, I expect that as well. But with that, we're going to call it a rap on this edition of Packers Unscripted and sign off for a little while, though. We will be back with you shortly before the NFL Draft in late April.

With that, He's West Hodkowitz. I'm Mike Spofford. Thanks for watching, everybody, see you next, right,