The Lass Word: Pack Could Pass on First Round Receivers

The more I study and learn about the top prospects in the upcoming NFL draft, the closer I come to acknowledging a possibility that most Packer fans would consider unthinkable.  Mainly, that Green Bay won’t use either one of their first round picks on a receiver.  That they won’t address the position until the second round. 

I contemplate this after reading volumes of scouting material on the players listed by the media gurus as the top pass catchers in this class.  It seems to me that the TV talking heads and website writers are much higher on these guys than the actual scouts are.   

That’s understandable.  They want clicks.  We all do.  The star college wideouts are players the fans know and are familiar with.  The media folk are going get more eyeballs hyping up Drake London and Chris Olave, than they would giving a lot of attention to Ikem Ekwonu and Kayvon Thibodeaux.  But, of course, the scouts and general managers don’t think that way.  They could care less which prospects are the most popular.  Their mission is to identify the best football players, and rank them accordingly on their draft board. 

Those draft boards may well look drastically different than the media mock drafts that are out there.  I’m beginning to believe this is especially true at the receiver position.  I now suspect that several of these highly publicized wideouts are not ranked nearly as high in the war rooms as they are on the internet.  When you pore through some of the scouting reports, it’s not a stretch to come to the conclusion that there is not much difference between, say, the top ten receivers.  And not a single one of them carries a unanimous “can’t miss” grade, meaning taking them in the first round may not only be unwise, but unnecessary. 

For example, I’ve seen multiple mocks predicting the Pack to select Penn State receiver Jahan Dotson with one of their first round selections.  Yet most evaluators I would consider credible do not rank Dotson as a first round talent.  In the CHTV draft guide, Ross Uglem rates him no better than the eleventh best prospect at the position.  If that’s true, Dotson will likely be there in the second round when Green Bay goes on the clock.  Is there really a significant drop off from Treylon Burks to George Pickens?  Pickens will be a second round selection.  Jameson Williams flashes impressive stats, but who knows when he comes back from an ACL suffered in the national title game.  Wouldn’t a second round tandem of Skyy Moore and Alec Pierce be immediately available and possibly an even better fit?  The media darling at this position seems to be North Dakota State’s Christian Watson, who shows up in most mocks as a day one pick.  In reality, the former Bison pass catcher is more likely a second round talent, and the teams know it.  An NFL.com analysis concludes that Watson “will eventually become an average starter.”   

Regardless of whether they tab a receiver in the first or second round, the Packers will take another swing or two on day three.  Marquez Valdes-Scantling was a fifth round pick.  Donald Driver, the franchise’s all time leading pass catcher, came in round seven.   

By contrast, the scouts seem to feel there are genuine future stars at the tackle and edge rusher positions, but the number of them is finite.  Ditto for corners and safeties.  Since all of those are also areas of need for the Packers, it would not shock me if Green Bay went in those directions with the 22nd and 28th picks they own in round one.  Doing so would, no doubt, bring a torrent of criticism down upon Brian Gutekunst.  But if there’s one thing the general manager has demonstrated, it’s that he’s going to take the players he likes, regardless of public sentiment.   

He took the heat for trading down in the first round in 2018, for drafting Rashan Gary in 2019, and especially for trading up to select Jordan Love in 2020.  He doesn’t care what you think.  I like that about him.  He’s certainly not always right.  He’s missed on several picks.  But he’s got guts, and that’s a quality a person in his position has to possess. 

Hey, I get it.  We’re all still stunned by the trading away of Davante Adams.  The current roster of receivers on the team would rank as the worst in the NFL.  Surely it is the team’s greatest position of need.  We’ve got extra premium picks.  We’re excited about these big name college wideouts we’ve been hearing so much about.  It’s a no-brainer that securing at least one of them on the first night is all but mandatory, right?  Well, not if you have to reach for one, at the expense of passing up a bona fide first round value. 

When it comes to receiver in this draft, patience may be a virtue.  After all, the Packers waited until the second round to take both Jordy Nelson and Davante Adams.  Did that work out okay?