The Green Bay Packers continue to build towards the future. The team now has five picks within the first three rounds of the 2024 NFL draft following Tuesday’s trade deadline deal that sent cornerback Rasul Douglas and a fifth-round pick to Buffalo for a third-round pick.
Although subject to change, the Packers — with a 2-5 record — currently hold the sixth overall selection in next year’s draft. Along with having their own second round pick, they also hold the New York Jets’ second rounder as part of the Aaron Rodgers’ trade. They now have two third-round selections as well—their own and Buffalo’s.
This will give the Packers the added opportunity to infuse this roster with more high-end talent as they try to navigate their way back towards being a playoff team. However, it’s not as if they haven’t had that opportunity – although not to this abundance – in recent drafts.
In the last two drafts alone, the Packers have made 24 selections. There is already a lot of young, developmental talent on this roster. If they are going to turn this ship around anytime soon, where they need to become really good is in their development of those draft picks.
Early returns from the 2022 and 2023 draft classes have been promising, but continued progress is a must, and there are a few players from 2022 who haven’t made that Year 2 leap yet. One reason why the Packers find themselves in the current position that they do is because they have very few actual impact players on this team from their 2020 and 2021 drafts, forcing them to rely more heavily on the inexperienced options that they have.
Out of 18 selections between those two years, players remaining from those draft classes include Eric Stokes, Josh Myers, TJ Slaton, Isaiah McDuffie, Royce Newman, Jordan Love, AJ Dillon, Josiah Deguara, and Jon Runyan. The only true starters from this group are Love, Stokes — who is injured — and Runyan and Myers, who aren’t playing at a starter level. Newman is a backup, while the rest do see playing time in some capacity, but ideally, are more role players with specific jobs to fill.
Ultimately, this is a chicken or the egg question. Is this the result of selecting the wrong players? Or not developing those two draft classes properly? Perhaps a combination of the two.
If the Packers do end up with having a pick around the top five in next year’s draft, they are going to find themselves in quite the predicament. 2024 is expected to be a quarterback rich draft, and unless things turnaround, Love hasn’t shown enough to give the team confidence that he can be the guy for the foreseeable future—although, with so much chaos going on around him, as a first-time starter, he hasn’t been given the best opportunity to showcase those abilities either.
We knew that the 2023 season was going to be a reset for Green Bay, to what degree was a bit of a question mark, but it was going to provide them with the opportunity to develop young talent and begin getting their salary cap situation in better order. However, as we get further down this path, it is becoming more clear that this is much more than a one-year reset. At a minimum, this is now a two-year window to get back on track.
I’m going to guess that things are going more poorly than Brian Gutekunst and Co. anticipated, but if Green Bay’s original timeline for this post-Rodgers reset was two or even three years, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see them stay the course next offseason. Now, that doesn’t mean there won’t be some changes that could take place. A real question bubbling up right now is whether or not the coaching staff that Matt LaFleur has constructed is able to properly develop and get the most out of the players they have. But if from top to bottom the Packers organization is in lock step with this two to three year timeline, they could remain patient and give Love the 2024 season – he is under contract – with hopefully a better supporting cast around him, to showcase what he can do.
Along with their being a bevy of quarterback talent in next year’s draft, this is also supposed to be a loaded offensive tackle class as well. Many of the issues that the Packers are experiencing on offense this season are starting up front with poor offensive line play.
They could also use help at safety, cornerback seems to be a bigger need than anticipated with Rasul Douglas gone, Keisean Nixon set to be a free agent, and uncertainty around how Stokes will bounce back. Wide receiver, running back, and the interior offensive line are all positions that could be addressed at some point as well.
Understandably so, with the season off the rails at this point, the thought of having a handful of top 100 picks is exciting. However, in the Packers effort to turn things around, having that draft capital is just one piece of the puzzle, it’s who those players become once in the building that ultimately matters.
