Editor’s Note: LWOS is pleased to add Rick Wiseman to the team. Rick will be writing on the NFL and NHL for the team.
Each season across major sports, teams come together and look at the best amateur athletes and hold their respective drafts. It’s essentially a roll of the dice, with the odds stacked in the favor of the teams drafting early having greater odds of their pick hitting. There are no guarantees, and with recent changes to the CBA, there’s less risk for teams drafting high.
Teams generally take a similar approach to the draft. Look at your team and identify your weaknesses and try to find the best player you can to address your own weaknesses – it all seems so simple. It’s why we see quarterbacks go really early in some drafts and really late in others – not every team is looking for their next quarterback.
Green Bay does things differently. Rather than using the draft to turn a weakness to strength, they will rely more on free agency. And keeping that in mind, when was the last Green Bay free agency signing that was a splash? Charles Woodson? Needless to say, the Packers are not making waves annually with big signings. So the draft selections become that much more important.
Green Bay has a simple approach to their draft; take the best available player at the time. It does not make a difference if it is a weakness for them at the time or a strength; draft the best player. Ted Thompson joined the team in 2005 with one of the best quarterbacks in the league coming off of 4,000+ yards passing and 30+ touchdowns. What does he do? He drafts a quarterback in the first round. It did not make sense at the time; the team was 4-12 and used their first pick to draft a player at their greatest strength. Since then we have seen the likes of AJ Hawk and Clay Matthews join the team at a time when what they brought to the field was not what the team needed most. But in Green Bay, the draft is used to take the best available player, remember, and weaknesses will be addressed through free agency.
And how has that worked over the past few years? The Packers consistently have one of the deepest teams in all of football. At the running back position, when it finally seems we have solidified a running game, an injury always seems to hit. Ryan Grant becomes a threat, he gets injured and James Starks steps in to take over. Last year it was by committee with Alex Green and Cedric Benson contributing briefly. This year Jonathan Franklin a third stringer rushes for over 100 yards after Eddie Lacy and Starks go down to injury.
With the Packers, it’s next man up and the past decade of decisions from the current management team gives us reason to remain optimistic even when a name we know goes down to injury.
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