Tracking the Packers’ pre-draft visits is always a good idea. I’ve wrote about this several times in this year’s pre-draft prep process, and, true to form, the Packers did what they always do. Four pre-draft visitors are now in Green Bay: quarterback Kyron Drones, edge rusher Nyjalik Kelly, linebacker T.J. Quinn, and offensive lineman Josh Gesky.
This year’s crop of visitors was a bit of an outlier, though, and that could create some long-term knock on effects. Using the NFL Mock Draft Database’s
consensus big board, we previously determined that this was one of the least-prestigious classes of visitors the Packers have ever had. The average consensus board position was 210,6, the lowest by far of the Gutekunst era.
In a vacuum, who cares, right? The Packers, without a first round pick this year and next, decided to target mainly later-round draft prospects and undrafted free agents. It’s not really all that surprising.
But the Packers have also made a pretty regular practice under Brian Gutekunst of acquiring players they visited with previously as and when they become available down the road. This hasn’t necessarily produced a huge hit so far, but players like safety Omar Brown, tight ends Ben Sims and John FitzPatrick, and offensive lineman Andre Dillard all made their way to Green Bay sometimes years after they’d visited with the Packers.
The biggest hit from this category is offensive lineman Darian Kinnard, who visited with the Packers prior to the 2022 NFL Draft then joined the Packers via trade at the very end of training camp last summer. Kinnard paid big dividends for the Packers, starting multiple games and shoring up their depth at both guard and tackle as well as moonlighting as a tight end.
Kinnard was projected as a low second round pick in 2022 and ended up going in the fifth round. I think it’s fair to ask if the Packers are depriving themselves of future acquisitions by trawling exclusively in the lower end of the draft rankings this year.
That’s not to say the Packers are setting themselves up to miss out on any marquee players; all the players I’ve mentioned were available for a reason. Either they were free agents outright, they were available on waivers, or their team didn’t mind offering them up for a song (in the case of Kinnard). But they were all parts of NFL rosters at a point; they were fresh, in shape, and up to speed on life in the NFL. Targeting lower-end players might not yield the same results, because chances are their stay in the NFL is going to be a short one to begin with. In approaching the draft and rookie free agency this way, the Packers might be burning a lot of work on a single year’s worth of return.
