The Packers’ pre-draft visits are a reliable barometer of what the team thinks of an incoming draft class. It’s an open secret so open it’s barely a secret. Track the Packers’ visits and you’ll have a pretty good idea what they’re planning for a given year’s draft.
For example, last year, they focused most of their pre-draft visits on wide receivers (seven pre-draft visits), offensive linemen (six), and edge rushers (five). They ended up drafting two wide receivers, two offensive linemen, and two edge rushers.
Three of the players in that group were pre-draft visitors (Matthew Golden, Savion Williams, and Anthony Belton), and they drafted another player who came in for a visit as well (Micah Robinson).
So what can this year’s visits tell us? With 17 on the board, here’s what the data says.
So far, the Packers’ most frequent pre-draft visit positions are running back, defensive line, and cornerback with three visits apiece. The only other positions where the Packers have spent more than one visit are wide receiver and linebacker.
Generally speaking, this tracks with what people consider the most significant needs for the Packers, with the exception of running back. They badly need help at cornerback and on the defensive line, so it makes sense that they’d be checking out those spots.
Running back is a bit of a surprise, but it also tracks with how the Packers tend to do business: they work to replace people about a year ahead of time. Which running back might need to be replaced in a year? Well, make whatever guess you like, but Josh Jacobs turns 29 next February, has already logged more than 2,100 career touches, and has a cap hit of $16.6 million for 2027, if that narrows things down at all.
Wide receiver might also seem like a bit of a surprise, but it shouldn’t be. The Packers have a raft of contracts coming due there; essentially everybody other than Matthew Golden and Savion Williams is set to be a free agent of some kind after this year. It wouldn’t at all be a surprise to see the Packers nab a wide receiver, especially if they’d trade one of their contract-year players.
There’s one significant caveat to this data: the Packers are scouting UDFA types harder this year than they have in almost a decade. Not counting players who are ranked so low they don’t appear at all, the Packers’ pre-draft visitors have had an average position on the NFL Mock Draft Database consensus big board of 204.5 so far — their lowest average position since 2017, Ted Thompson’s last year as the Packers’ general manager. Put plainly, the Packers have spent nine of their 17 visits so far on likely undrafted free agents, and if that pace continues, it’ll be easily the highest figure of the Gutekunst era.
With no first round pick, the Packers are going hard after Day 2 and Day 3 prospects and undrafted free agents as they make plans to fill out positions of need. We’ll get an even better idea where the Packers are headed as the draft draws closer, and I’ll check in again on these numbers before everything kicks off in Pittsburgh.
