Packers' 2024 draft class has paid dividends even amid brutal injury luck

Edgerrin Cooper just earned Defensive Player of the Week honors the same week first-round pick Jordan Morgan was announced out for the season. It's emblematic of this draft class.

Injuries pressed Evan Williams into the starting lineup. Injuries moved Javon Bullard to the slot. Injuries forced Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator to try Keisean Nixon outside, which gave Bullard the chance to play in the slot and moved Williams into the starting safety spot. That clicked into the best version of the Packers defense. Injuries did that.

But injuries will also cost first-round pick Jordan Morgan nearly his entire rookie season. Ditto for MarShawn Lloyd, the Packers dynamic third-round pick who came into training camp with lofty expectations from Green Bay coaches. An injury in training camp scuttled Edgerrin Cooper’s development and prevented him from walking right into the Packers’ starting nickel linebacker job, a spot he’s been unable to wrangle this year partly because of those dang injuries.

In a different season, losing a first and third-round pick for the year, or at least most of it, would inhibit the growth of the youngest team in the league. But Sean Rhyan was already keeping Morgan at bay in their right guard rotation. He’s been a quality starter for the Packers. And Josh Jacobs enters Week 16 the league’s third-leading rusher. Behind him, Emanuel Wilson and Chris Brooks provide a versatile complement of backs.

This is such a well-constructed roster that those losses matter significantly less than they probably should and less than they likely would have if Ted Thompson had been running this team. He never would have signed off on a Jacobs free agency deal for example.

Even with those injuries and Ty’Ron Hopper, the third-round linebacker from Missouri, being a DNP-CD most of the season, this rookie class has already provided more than enough value to qualify as a success.

It started with Bullard who walked into the starting safety role next to Xavier McKinney. The former Georgia standout played safety his final season with the Bulldogs, but was an even better slot cornerback the year before. Kirby Smart moved him because the defense needed the help at safety.