The Green Bay Packers have leaned heavily on drafting developmental projects in the first round since Brian Gutekunst took over as general manager in 2018.
The Packers drafted Rashan Gary 12th overall in 2019 after signing Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith in free agency. The idea was for Gary to develop behind the veterans and eventually become Green Bay’s No. 1 option off the edge. Six seasons later, Gary has 39 career sacks and was tied for 44th-most pressures in 2024. He’s good but hasn’t reached the level of game-wreckers like Myles Garrett, Maxx Crosby, T.J. Watt, Aidan Hutchinson, or Micah Parsons.
Green Bay traded up for Jordan Love in 2020, months after losing the NFC Championship to the San Francisco 49ers. Most fans expected Gutekunst to pick a wide receiver to help Aaron Rodgers make another Super Bowl run, so the Love pick wasn’t well received.
Ultimately, the move paid off. Love led the Packers to the playoffs in both seasons as a starter and became the first quarterback to win a playoff game for a seventh-seeded team. However, Gutekunst’s thought process in that draft still may have been flawed. Why draft a player who wouldn’t see the field for three years instead of addressing immediate needs for a team that was one game away from the Super Bowl?
The Packers took Devonte Wyatt with the 28th-overall pick in the 2022 draft. He was a raw prospect who needed to develop his fundamentals before competing for a starting role. A year later, they picked Lukas Van Ness 13th overall. Van Ness didn’t start a single game in college. The last time he started a game was at Barrington High School in 2019.
Drafting a player with the expectation that they’ll make an impact in three to four years is a wise strategy for a team in rebuilding mode. However, Green Bay is a contender.
The Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback situation is uncertain. They also have crucial free-agent decisions and only three picks in the 2024 draft. Most of the Detroit Lions’ coaching staff won’t return for 2025, and the Chicago Bears will have a rookie head coach. Meanwhile, the Packers will enter Year 3 of Jordan Love with cap-space flexibility and Year 2 of Jeff Hafley leading the defense, which is usually when a new system starts to click.
Matt LaFleur’s team will have a shot at winning the division. However, the front office needs to ensure the Packers are positioned to achieve much more than that. That starts with adding ready-to-play talent. What Gutekunst does with Green Bay’s first-round pick will be telling. It will show us whether his actions align with his words.
In his season-ending press conference, Gutekunst emphasized Green Bay’s urgency to compete for championships. “We need to continue to ramp up our sense of urgency,” he said. “These opportunities don’t come very often. The life of a player in the NFL is not very long. We’ve got a bunch of good guys in that locker room, a bunch of talented guys. I think it’s time we start competing for championships.”
With that sense of urgency comes the need to add players who can contribute immediately. The push to compete for championships leaves no room for a high investment in a player who might only make an impact years later.
Daniel Jeremiah’s first mock draft has Green Bay selecting Texas A&M’s Shemar Stewart with the 23rd pick. Stewart is highly athletic, likely to test well at the combine, and has significant upside. However, he’s a developmental project and isn’t the immediate contributor Green Bay should target.
Jeremiah has connections around the league. He might have a good sense of what teams think about specific prospects — or it could be an overreaction.
The issue with targeting a late first-round prospect is sacrificing upside. It’s rare for the Packers to be in a position to draft a pass rusher who is polished, productive in college, and still has upside. Those players are usually off the board within the top 15 picks. Therefore, Green Bay will probably try to upgrade the pass rush via free agency and target a developmental talent later in the draft.
Green Bay has needs at receiver and cornerback. The Packers haven’t taken a receiver in the first round since 2002, but what if a player like Emeka Egbuka is available? It would be a hard pass. There are prospects at both positions who could come in and contribute immediately.
Front offices are paid to consider the present and the future. However, Brian Gutekunst must ensure the Packers have what they need to compete for a championship in 2025. That means deviating from his usual draft philosophy, at least for this year.