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Given the chance to perhaps trade up in the first round from the 30th overall pick and land one of the players popularized in fans’ minds by the multitude of mock drafts, general manager Ted Thompson instead opted to trade back, winding up with three second-round picks. Atop that group was Kansas State wide receiver Jordy Nelson, a former walk-on turned record-breaker at a position where the Packers already appeared pretty well-off.
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Jason Wilde, Wisconsin State Journal |
Nelson was followed by Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, drafted to back up new starter Aaron Rodgers, and Auburn cornerback Patrick Lee, who’ll join several other young corners as possible heirs apparent to aging starters Al Harris and Charles Woodson.
Only third-round tight end Jermichael Finley, a raw redshirt sophomore who just turned 21 last month, plays a position of obvious, immediate need.
And so, even coach Mike McCarthy acknowledged, when asked how long it’ll take for this year’s class to contribute, that it might be a while.
“Time will tell. I think that’s an excellent question,” McCarthy said. “I look at our team, just the way we’ve operated going from Year 1 to Year 2, and now going from Year 2 to 3, we must improve from within. And that’s something our whole football team has done a very good job of.
“And now through the draft, we’ll obtain good quality football players, which I think we’ve done (this weekend). They’ll be given opportunities, obviously, to produce and contribute. We feel they fit what we do already, and they all have an opportunity to contribute, just as a number of our young players did last year.”
Competitive nature: The true value of the class won’t be determined immediately, of course. What matters, in Thompson’s mind, is that, “They’re good investments in the team both in the short haul and the long-term.”
But one way they could impact the club this season — even if they’re not making weekly game-day contributions — is by elevating the competition level at their respective positions.
“(It’s) not a surprise based on what our philosophy is,” wide receivers coach Jimmy Robinson said when asked if he was expecting Thompson to take a player at his position. “That’s what Ted does. We always look for good depth. We always try and improve at every position from the bottom up.
“I expect (Nelson) to come in and compete and to add to the depth of our group. And if he proves that he’s worthy of playing time, then he’ll get it. It makes the group a better group when you have better talent. And the more talent you have, the more competition (there is). It makes the whole group better.”
Thompson, who played 10 NFL seasons with the Houston Oilers as a backup linebacker and special-teamer, was precisely that type of player — scratching to make the roster every year while also pushing those ahead of him on the depth chart.
“He just happened to be on a team that had two great players — Ted Washington and Robert Brazile — ahead of him,” his Oilers coach, Bum Phillips, once said. “He was an excellent football player; he just never got credit for it.”
What if game: So maybe two-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Donald Driver goes down with an injury and Nelson emerges along as a viable threat with Greg Jennings and James Jones — two draft picks who, at the time, weren’t particularly well-received by the fan base, either. Or perhaps Rodgers gets hurt or is ineffective and Brohm moves into the starting spot. It’s possible Lee will win the No. 3 cornerback job in camp and play extensively in the nickel defense.
But it’s also possible that Nelson won’t crack the formidable “Big 5” receiver crew, Brohm’s only action comes in the preseason and Lee cannot leap-frog Tramon Williams, Will Blackmon and Jarrett Bush into the defensive sub packages.
Does that mean they won’t help the Packers in 2008? Not if Nelson’s arrival brings out the best in Jones, Ruvell Martin and Koren Robinson, if Brohm pushes Rodgers, and Lee challenges the improved Williams, the oft-injured Blackmon and the inconsistent Bush.
“I don’t think you can ever stop trying to push the envelope and make the group better,” Thompson said. “It looks better today on paper. Now, we’ve got names stuck up on a wall. We haven’t assembled the team and walked them out there in practice and done all that. But on paper, it looks pretty good.”
Time will tell: And perhaps, the 2008 draft will turn out even better than the initial reaction has been to it.
“I’m not so sure you can attack a draft in terms of trying to find a difference-maker. I think everybody you’re trying to get is a good football player,” Thompson said. “For instance, Jordy Nelson — the Kansas State coaches would argue that he is absolutely a difference-maker. But we’ll see how he does in the NFL.
“You try to get as many good football players as you can and see how it works as they go through their careers. Greg Jennings, a couple years ago, we took him (as a) smaller-school guy (and) nobody thought much about it, but he’s a difference-maker on the field. And we have a number of other guys that are that way. I think difference-makers come from, obviously you have to have talent, but you have to have a good football team around them.”
