Are the Packers offering hints at their draft strategy with their pre-draft visits?
The Green Bay Packers can’t waste time. This is true in a broad sense around the uncertain future of Aaron Rodgers, but also in the NFL draft season in which time and resources dry up quickly. They simply can’t work out every prospect or dig bedrock deep into 500 players. The process requires culling down the list, zeroing in on targets, and focusing attention on weak points on the roster. It’s why the place they’re spending resources this spring could give us insight into both how they view this draft and how they view their team.
Over the weekend, Tom Silverstein reported 27 of the 30 official pre-draft visits and there’s a clear trend that emerges. Among the position groups, here’s how the most visited positions break down:
8 OTs
7 WRs
5 iDL
4 Box/overhang defenders
There’s also a clear pattern. The offensive linemen are mostly Day 2 players and UDFA, while the receivers break out into borderline first-round players (Where the Packers have two picks), middle-round players, and UDFA’s. And defensive linemen where Green Bay met with two top-50 type players with motor/attitude/off-field questions to be answered. It’s not hard to look at that list and see the overlap with what we’d consider top-of-the-line position fits in the draft.
What’s more, these pre-draft visits matter more to Brain Gutekunst than they did to Ted Thompson who regarded the visits as a tool for recruiting undrafted free agents rather than as intelligence gathering opportunities on top-100 picks.
Going back a few years, the Packers met with Jonathan Garvin and Kamal Martin at the combine in 2020 and had Love and Deguara in for pre-draft visits, and Green Bay did a lot of work on linebackers in that draft. We could have predicted they’d take one at some point, though they also poured resources into projected early picks as well.
This is where a word of caution must be uttered. Just because the front office likes a certain group of players who thinks a position is juicy with value at a particular range of picks does not mean the board will fall that way. But it does offer some insight into what they see in the draft and where they see the team.
The extent to which we can glean actionable (or even useful) data here can be argued, but it follows a team needing receivers would commit to extensive work at the position. Resources are simply too valuable to waste on smokescreens. It costs nothing to leak to a reporter that the team is willing to wait and trade down at receiver; it costs much more in both literal resources and opportunity cost to scout a safety instead.
Still, this all fits together with the shape of the draft as well. Green Bay has a clear need at receiver. They know who the Tier 1 guys are (Garrett Wilson, Drake London, Chris Olave, Jameson Williams), while the next cohort are far more likely to be available to them at the end of the first. Digging into Treylon Burks, George Pickens, and Christian Watson could be just as much about deciding to move up, eschewing those players, as doing diligence on those guys.
Either way, it’s useful intel.
A receiver in Round 1, an offensive lineman, EDGE, and maybe a tackle on Day 2, with a speedy pass-catching on Day 3, along with some likely special teams guys and some freak athletes thrown in? Yeah, that sounds like a Packers draft alright.
A mock draft like this could fit their eye. It would sure fit mine.
