Each year there are a few prospects who scream “Green Bay Packers draft pick.” This year, one of those players is Georgia offensive tackle Amarius Mims, who could be the 2024 version of Lukas Van Ness for the Packers.
Although Mims and Van Ness play two completely different positions on opposite sides of the ball, there is quite a bit in common between the two when it comes for what the Packers look for in their first-round selections.
Both players were relatively inexperienced coming out of their respective colleges. Van Ness played 940 career snaps at Iowa, all of which came in his final two seasons. Mims, meanwhile, played just 803 snaps from 2021 through 2023.
Both players, however, possess tremendous upside so their lack of snaps compared to others can be overlooked, to a degree. While all teams want immediate help, the draft is about selecting players based on who teams believe they can become, not who they are on draft night, and there aren’t many teams who display this kind of patience like the Packers do.
Contributing to the massive upside that Van Ness and Mims have is their athletic testing. Van Ness posted an elite Relative Athletic Score (RAS) of 9.39 during the pre-draft process. This was the seventh-best mark among all edge rushers in what was a deep 2023 draft class.
Mims, who measures in at 6-7, weighs 340 pounds, and has over 36-inch arms, recorded an elite RAS as well, scoring 9.58 out of 10. Again, in what is an extremely deep 2024 tackle draft class, this was the eighth-best RAS recorded.
Age is also often a factor in the decision-making process for the Packers in the first round of the draft. Van Ness was 21 years old when he was drafted and Mims will be as well.
In addition to all of that, both players play two of the most important positions in the game – getting after the quarterback and protecting the quarterback – which we know the Packers value highly.
One could also make the point that neither edge rusher in 2023, with Preston Smith and Rashan Gary, nor offensive tackle in 2024, with Rasheed Walker and Zach Tom, were needs that the Packers have to address in the first round.
Mims played his entire career at Georgia at right tackle. Over the last two seasons, he hasn’t surrendered a sack and allowed just five pressures in 364 pass-blocking snaps. He’s also graded out well as a run-blocker by PFF’s metrics.
It’s clear, especially in the first round of the draft, that the Packers have a type, and this extends beyond Brian Gutekunst’s tenure as GM. Going into last year’s draft, Van Ness checked just about every box that the Packers look for, and as you can see, Mims follows a very similar path.
