Your 'initial' assessment of the Draft

[gopackgo972]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nfl.com/_amp/2021-nfl-draft-final-quick-snap-grades-for-all-32-teams
 

These grade seem extremely generous. 

[packfanfb]

My two cents about the draft and where we go from here:

1. I liked the draft overall. Good mix of guys who can help now, vs. future. Help added to CB and the OL. Amari is going to be a big addition to the offense as a WR and gadget player, plus ST. 

2. I think GB needs to make two additions post-draft. First, as Gute alluded to, I'd like to see a cheap vet ILB addition. Second and more importantly, we need to add a legitimate player to the DL. I still think Lowry is a fish out of water in this new defense, so I'm hoping we can work it with 12, extend him, clear some cap, cut Lowry, and use some of those combined funds to get one of the best DL left on the market. That's really the only piece left missing for this team to make another run and maybe get over the top.

[Sasquatch]

Sounds like many, including me, would give this draft a W grade  Whelmed.

[R T]

8 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

My two cents about the draft and where we go from here:

1. I liked the draft overall. Good mix of guys who can help now, vs. future. Help added to CB and the OL. Amari is going to be a big addition to the offense as a WR and gadget player, plus ST. 

2. I think GB needs to make two additions post-draft. First, as Gute alluded to, I'd like to see a cheap vet ILB addition. Second and more importantly, we need to add a legitimate player to the DL. I still think Lowry is a fish out of water in this new defense, so I'm hoping we can work it with 12, extend him, clear some cap, cut Lowry, and use some of those combined funds to get one of the best DL left on the market. That's really the only piece left missing for this team to make another run and maybe get over the top.

Lowry is probably a better fit this year than last.   

[packfanfb]

2 hours ago, R T said:

Lowry is probably a better fit this year than last.   

Really? Read a piece before the draft saying that if Barry runs Staley's defense, the traditional 5-tech role is obsolete. Rather you want more guys like Keke to 1-gap and penetrate up field. Doesn't sound like Lowry to me, in fact, th3 same article agreed that Lowry isn't a scheme fit. Believe it an article by Ross Uglem. 

[R T]

16 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

Really? Read a piece before the draft saying that if Barry runs Staley's defense, the traditional 5-tech role is obsolete. Rather you want more guys like Keke to 1-gap and penetrate up field. Doesn't sound like Lowry to me, in fact, th3 same article agreed that Lowry isn't a scheme fit. Believe it an article by Ross Uglem. 

I think Lowry is a little more scheme versatile than Packer fans give him credit for. I don't think Pettine's scheme did him any favors, think he would be best suited as gap penetrator. People is 6'6 and think 5-tech only, but his short arms always made that roll difficult.  

[AlexGreen#20]

6 hours ago, skibrett15 said:

this guy seems too big a la Ty Montgomery.  I guess if the plan is to use him more like a RB/WR hybrid it's ok, but he doesn't have straight line speed, and he doesn't have COD ability, what exactly is he... a 5 foot 9 Tight end?

It's not that he doesn't have the COD ability, it's just a bit short of what you usually see out of a guy who isn't going to play on the outside. You'll still need to cover him with a CB. 

But if you're going to play serious reps in the slot in this offense you're going to need a fair amount of "want to" when it comes to throwing yourself into those (not) crack blocks on the backers. 

[Pugger]

18 hours ago, R T said:

It was sarcasm Pugger, sarcasm aimed at those that can't stop declaring how awful the 2020 draft was. We don't know how good or bad a draft is until years down the road. That is all.  

For sure.   I recall many here moaned about taking Rashan Gary in 2019 and it appears we might have a pretty nice player here after all.  🙂

[Chili]

14 hours ago, skibrett15 said:

this guy seems too big a la Ty Montgomery.  I guess if the plan is to use him more like a RB/WR hybrid it's ok, but he doesn't have straight line speed, and he doesn't have COD ability, what exactly is he... a 5 foot 9 Tight end?

I can see what you mean with him but I don't think that any reason to be overly negative about the pick. He still got lots of good things to offer and I think we can develop him to do far more things for us than he did for Clemson.

First of all his COD skills, he shown he is capable of side stepping past one or two players for a positive gains but yeah he isn't going to run rings around everybody but he IS capable of beating players. He is a more straight line-ish runner but that's not necessarily a bad thing, it can mean he tries to get as many yards as he can before he gets tackled instead of flaffing around running sideways for no gain. As long he is efficient with his running he will remain effective. He runs pretty well and has shown a few times he can beat players deep for a long gain. I don't think we need to worry about his speed too much.

When I watch him I immediately think of Edelman, he isn't a speedster and didn't run rings around everybody either and yet he was a highly productive slot receiver and was absolutely trusted in the return game. This is what Amari will bring for us. He must have sufficient COD ability if he is capable of returning punts. Like Edelman he is shorted armed but that doesn't matter as long as he can catch and Amari clearly shows he can. Of course it does mean he needs an accurate QB who can throw into his small catch radius and thankfully we do have one in Rodgers.

The difference between him and Edelman is his size. He is built like a RB which makes him harder to tackle and that can be very advantageous in certain moments and it also opens up to the possibility of using him as a RB situationally but this area of his game is largely unexplored and is something that will need to be developed with us if we want to use him that way.

He doesn't show extreme COD or extreme speed or extreme length and yet he still has enough of everything to continue being a highly productive player. It is the way we're going to use him that theoretically will bring the most out of his skillset.

[packfanfb]

11 hours ago, R T said:

I think Lowry is a little more scheme versatile than Packer fans give him credit for. I don't think Pettine's scheme did him any favors, think he would be best suited as gap penetrator. People is 6'6 and think 5-tech only, but his short arms always made that roll difficult.  

I mean, fine, keep Lowry then, I have no problem with that of the Packers think he's useful as a rotational guy. We still need to make a legit addition on the DL to complete this roster IMO. I feel good about it pretty much everywhere else.

[Billy86]

23 hours ago, SSG said:

It's certainly better than last year’s draft but that’s a low bar given the fact that we quite literally got nothing from the class last year and I'm not sure we're projecting a starter out of it this year.  

Two starting ilbs, a potential starting guard, a guy who looks like a long term answer at FB that can also chip in at TE (albeit in limited time due to injuries) and some depth at safety as well as potentially de/olb is 'literally nothing'? 

We didn't get a tonne from then last year but even barnes/martin/runyan make it difficult to say we got 'literally nothing' from last year's group. Beyond that though, even if Love completely flops I expect to see some big improvements on 'regrading the 2020 draft' articles two years from now for it. It might just be me, but I think that actually wound up a pretty nifty little draft... if Love becomes a starter this year or next and plays well it could well be one of our best drafts in 20 years. 

[OneTwoSixFive]

So, which team do you think had the best draft ? I thought 4 teams were especially good (meaning they got a lot of the players I liked).

DETROIT OT Sewell, DT Onwuzurike, DT McNiel, CB Melifonwu, WR St.Brown, LB Barnes, RB Jefferson
Basically a who's who list of my favourite prospects. Barnes was the only one I was ambivalent about.

CAROLINA  CB Horn, WR Marshall, TE Tremble, OT Christensen, RB Hubbard, DT Nixon,  CB Taylor, OG Brown, WR Smith, LS Fletcher, DT Hoskins
Loved it from Horn to Taylor, the last few not so much

CLEVELAND CB Newsome, LB Owusu-Koromoah, WR Schwarz, G/T Hudson, DT Togiai, LB Fields, S LeCounte, RB Felton
Liked most picks.  Schwarz, Hudson, Togiai, Fields was nice in the middle there.

CHICAGO Like it mainly for the first 2 picks of QB Fields and OT Jenkins.

Where did Green Bay rank ? Well, immediate impressions are little more than darts tossed blind at a board, but I didn't like what I saw, so I'd have them in the lower third of teams. I'm hoping my very underwhelmed first impression is thoroughly disproved over time, especially as two of the teams whose draft I really liked, are in the NFC North.

Edited May 3, 2021 by OneTwoSixFive

[Cakeshoppe]

17 hours ago, gopackgo972 said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nfl.com/_amp/2021-nfl-draft-final-quick-snap-grades-for-all-32-teams
 

These grade seem extremely generous. 

lol NFL.com (and many others) are worthless for grades because they feel the need to make everyone happy. The lowest grade they gave for a team overall is a C and I counted a single one. Great to hear that every single team was above average at worst

[tttmikeb]

They only picked one guy from my draft contest list, so they obviously don't know what they're doing.  

OK, seriously...I'm OK with this class.  That's about it.

I like Stokes.  I was a bit surprised he went that early, but I get it.  If they like him, I don't get too hung up about the exact pick number.  The fit & need are obvious, and he'll have time to grow into the role.  

I'm probably most excited about Amari Rodgers.  I honestly wasn't sure they'd target a slot WR/KR type, but I'm glad they did.  He sounds like a great fit.

Others have mentioned an emphasis on special teams, which I agree with.  And I like that they focused on that.  Hopefully that's a sign that they're more committed to improving that aspect of the team.  

My biggest issue is the OL picks.  I'm all about building a football team in the trenches.  However, 3 OL for the second draft in a row seems like one of two things: overkill, or an admission that we blew it on the OL picks last year.  I don't like either option.  I also expected them to target OT more than G/C.  I understand the need to replace Linsley, but I thought it was easier/better to move Jenkins to C and draft an OT high.  Now I feel like we're still set at G/C (which isn't significantly different than how I felt pre-draft) but still lacking at OT.  I hope they're right and I'm wrong, but I'm kinda skeptical at this point.  

As with any draft class, only time will tell.

[St Vince]

I think the NFC north overall had a solid draft. I'm still disappointed with our DL depth. I thought we would draft at least  two DL. We passed over a few guys I wanted but oh well. Both Minn and Chi have a glut of good DL, I'm hoping we can poach Twyman and Tonga off their PS.