The Green Bay Packers will face the biggest “what if” of their season on Sunday Night Football. The Packers will need to contain star wide receiver A.J. Brown, for whom the Philadelphia Eagles traded during April’s draft. That was the only move capable of changing the Packers’ season’s short-term prospects after they traded Davante Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Adams trade was understandable. The veteran receiver asked for the trade to play closer to his family and with his long-time friend Derek Carr. Other deals to replace Adams weren’t so smart, especially absent hindsight. Tyreek Hill, 28, is an older player, so it was hard to pay the price to get him. Free-agent additions are always risky. The Jacksonville Jaguars’ Christian Kirk deal shows how teams generally overpay on the open market.
However, the Brown trade and contract extension were pretty affordable, and that’s why Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman made it happen. The Eagles traded a first and a third (18th and 101st-overall picks) to acquire Brown from the Tennessee Titans and immediately gave him a four-year, $100 million contract. Both were a highly acceptable price to pay for a 25-year-old receiver who’s been extremely productive throughout his NFL career.
The Packers made their moves to rebuild the wide receiver room. They were fairly aggressive and traded both of their late second-round picks to move up and secure Christian Watson. Selecting Romeo Doubs in the fourth round has already proved to be a valuable decision. Watson and Doubs have a realistic chance to be the future of the position for the Packers, and they are younger and much cheaper than Brown. So there is logic behind the decision.
Nonetheless, the Packers tried to stay competitive to maximize the twilight of Aaron Rodgers‘ career. Therefore, an all-in move to get a veteran receiver would make more sense considering this window. Even if Watson and Doubs end up being good or great players, it was always unimaginable for them to be as productive as Brown right away. That was one of the reasons why Howie Roseman pulled the trigger.
“The best guys in the draft are going to hit on 60% of their first-round picks,” Roseman said in May.
No matter how strongly you feel about a first-round pick, you still don’t know how that guy is going to transition. How is he going to transition to a new city? How is he going to transition with money in his pocket? How is he going to translate to new personalities? How is he going to translate living on his own for the first time? I’m not saying that’s a reason to be risk averse and not take draft picks, but because we had accumulated some of these draft picks and because of those other reasons, we felt like this made sense for us right now at this time.
The Packers had a lower pick than the Eagles, so they would probably need to include the 22nd-overall pick plus one of their second-rounders to get him from the Titans. With the 28th pick, they would still have the option to get Quay Walker (that’s not a guarantee, but he wasn’t considered a sure bet to go in the first round at all), Devonte Wyatt, or even Watson. With the 53rd pick, they could have gotten wide receiver Alec Pierce, safety Bryan Cook, edges Drake Jackson, or Nik Bonitto, or even offensive tackle Abraham Lucas.
The decision to get Watson is understandable, but such an aggressive move to get a rookie is risky. Maybe it would be a safer decision to get him with the 28th pick, but Gutekunst seemed to really like Wyatt, who hasn’t been able to earn a starting spot on the defensive line so far.
Even playing in a run-heavy offense in Philly and sharing targets with fellow receiver Devonta Smith, Brown has 49 receptions, 785 yards, and six touchdowns in the season. Green Bay’s leading receiver is Allen Lazard, with 38 receptions, 529 yards, and five touchdowns. Romeo Doubs has 314 yards, and Watson has 243 — most of them in the last two games.
In the long run, there is a chance that the Packers made the right decision, considering Watson and Doubs have an opportunity to be impactful players in the long-term. But Brown was a rare opportunity to get a young and highly talented receiver just going into his second professional contract.
I have criticized Green Bay’s middle-of-the-road approach to team building, and the wide receiver direction in the offseason was a great example. That was a no-brainer if the idea was to maximize Rodgers’ final years. If it was a long-term roster-building plan, there was little reason to keep Rodgers in these circumstances.
