Packers coach Matt LaFleur talks about team taking the next step
Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur discusses players role’s and the NFLPA report at the owner’s meeting.
- Drafting the “best player available” is a sound principle for building a talented NFL roster.
- Seattle Seahawks GM John Schneider found success by returning to this philosophy after a period of decline.
- Packers GM Brian Gutekunst may prioritize drafting a difference-maker over filling an immediate roster need.
GREEN BAY − If Brian Gutekunst has an early-round draft pick that leaves you scratching your head because it didn’t address one of the Green Bay Packers’ most immediate needs, keep in mind the Super Bowl-champion Seattle Seahawks.
Earlier this offseason, in a column about how the final four playoff teams built their rosters, Albert Breer of SI.com provided insight into Seahawks general manager John Schneider’s decision to return to his best-player-available drafting roots that has rebuilt his team.
Breer outlined how Schneider several years ago took a hard look at why the Seahawks’ talent had declined as the Legion of Boom aged out of the NFL.
Schneider’s self-scout concluded he’d changed his draft philosophy because he’d been paying his many stars from that era big money. He found that he’d too often reached on picks to fill lineup needs with cheap rookies, and it only served to diminish his roster.
To illustrate the point, Schneider shared a story with his scouting staff from his time working for former Packers GM Ted Thompson.
Going into the 2008 draft, the Packers had a solid receiving corps and many bigger needs, most especially a pass rusher, but also offensive line and interior defensive line. But instead of maneuvering up the board for a rusher with his first pick or drafting a position of greater need when his selection came up at No. 30, Thompson traded back to the early second round for an extra fourth-round pick knowing he’d still have a shot at a player he especially liked, wide receiver Jordy Nelson.
Foregoing need in that draft turned out to be one of Thompson’s better moves. Nelson eventually became a Pro Bowler and one of the best receivers in Packers history.
With that in mind, Schneider in the early 2020s committed himself to adhering more to the philosophy that had built the Legion of Doom in the first place.
“Looking to draft as many great players as possible,” Breer wrote of the GM’s mindset.
Schneider’s 2023 draft illustrated what can be gained when drafting the best player available, as well as what can be lost when you don’t throughout all seven rounds.
Receiver didn’t rank among Schneider’s biggest needs going into that draft. He’d already invested big money in that position with Tyler Lockett and a recent contract extension for DK Metcalf. What the Seahawks badly needed was help on the interior of their offensive line.
Yet, when the Seahawks’ pick at No. 20 came up, the best player on Schneider’s board was receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Schneider took him, and Smith-Njigba has quickly become one of the NFL’s premier receivers and was first-team All-Pro last season.
Yet, there was a later-round receiver the Seahawks also had a strong grade on, Puka Nacua. According to Breer, they’d rated him as the second-most competitive player in the draft.
But Schneider passed on Nacua in the third, fourth and fifth rounds because of other needs. In fact, in the fifth round he tried to fill his biggest need by drafting a second interior lineman (center Olusegun Oluwatimi) just 23 picks before Nacua went off the board.
Nacua, of course, has also become a premier receiver and, like Smith-Njigba, was first-team All-Pro last season. If Schneider had picked him, too, he’d now have two of the four best receivers in the game (Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase are the others). Just imagine.
That illustrates as well as anything why picking the best player available is a sound drafting principle, if much easier said than done. If Schneider had passed on Smith-Njigba and drafted an interior lineman or another position of greater need, he’d have missed out on a great player. His 2023 draft was a franchise shifter because he hit big on a high pick (cornerback Devon Witherspoon at No. 5 overall) and went with his board at No. 20 overall as well.
But the Nacua decision shows how hard it is to stick to the board pick after pick after pick, even for a GM as philosophically committed to it as Schneider.
That’s the rub with drafting. Need has to play a factor as well. You can’t draft seven or eight players at only a couple of positions in any given draft. You have to restock talent across your roster.
But not sticking to his board with Nacua cost Schneider a great player. Oluwatimi, on the other hand, has started 13 games in his three-year career and goes into 2026 as the Seahawks’ backup center.
That is not to say that drafting the best player available ensures anything. Best players available fail, too. And drafting for need can still land a good or even great player. Luck plays a big factor in drafting, too.
But the odds of drafting great players are low enough as it is. Taking the best player on your board on any given pick at least improves the odds of landing one. And in the end, no matter the position, those are the players who give you the best chance to win games.
That’s something to remember if Gutekunst makes a pick like last year with Savion Williams in the third round. It was a stunner, because the GM already had spent a first-round pick on a receiver (Matthew Golden) and had a room full of veterans at that position (Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed, Christian Watson and Dontayvion Wicks). He had several far greater needs.
Even Gutekunst and coach Matt LaFleur copped to being surprised the GM had spent two of his first three picks on receivers.
But Gutekunst thought Williams was his best shot at a difference maker with that pick, so he took him.
It doesn’t mean Williams will become a good player – he was raw coming into the NFL, and his rookie season was nothing to get excited about. But nobody should be writing him off yet, either. And the greater point is, the more often you draft the best player available as opposed to filling needs, the better the chance you’ll land a player really worth having.
That’s why it is − and should be − difficult to predict the position Gutekunst will pick in the second round at No. 52 overall, his top selection in this year’s draft.
At least in my mind, cornerback is by far the Packers’ greatest need. It’s the position more than any other begging for a talent upgrade. But that doesn’t mean Gutekunst should take the best cornerback on the board when his pick comes up at No. 52. Or the best player at any other position he’s prioritizing in this draft. He should take the player he thinks has the best chance of being a difference maker for his team.
If the grades are about even, then sure, yield to needs.
But as badly as Gutekunst surely wants a cornerback, it wouldn’t surprise at all if at No. 52 he picks a pass rusher, run stopper or offensive lineman. In fact, the only positions I’d eliminate at 52 are quarterback, special-teams specialists, safety (he has three good ones) and probably receiver.
In two or three years, nobody’s going to judge this draft by saying Gutekunst didn’t address this need or that. It will be judged on how many good and great players he landed, because that’s what will make the biggest difference for his team on the field.
Yes, it still will count as a big surprise if Gutekunst doesn’t come out of the first three rounds with a cornerback. Need sometimes counts for something.
But if he makes a pick or two that doesn’t address a big hole on his roster, you’ll know what he’s at least trying to do.
