In case you haven’t heard, the Green Bay Packers drafted a bunch of guys last week. They’re all future stars, of course, but that doesn’t mean they’re day one starters.
So which of the Packers’ draftees will start, if any?
The guy with the best chance of starting probably isn’t the guy you think.
The obvious answer here would be first-round pick Damarious Randall, but we doubt he’ll be a starter from the get go. Randall played safety in college and he’ll be making the transition to cornerback with the Packers. Regardless of how talented he is, there are bound to be some bumps in that road.
What’s more, the Packers have several other capable corners with more experience. I speak of Sam Shields, Micah Hyde and Casey Hayward, of course.
Our bet is Randall opens the season watching from the bench and maybe gets action as the dime back.
The same goes for second-round pick Quinten Rollins. He played only one year of college football at Miami (OH). While Rollins has plenty of talent, he’s still raw.
Third-round pick Ty Montgomery? To suggest he could unseat Jordy Nelson or Randall Cobb or even overtake Davante Adams as the Packers’ No. 3 receiver is a reach to say the least.
That brings us to fourth-round pick Jake Ryan.
In our eyes, Ryan is the only guy the Packers drafted who might have a legitimate shot to win a starting job in training camp.
Ryan is an inside linebacker and the Packers are unsettled at that position.
The smart money says their starters are Sam Barrington and Clay Matthews, but what if Ryan comes in and shows that he’s a playmaker?
It would be easy to shift Matthews back to outside linebacker in order to get another playmaker on the field.
If we were betting, we’d bet none of the Packers rookies end up starting this season, which means they just drafted a bunch of backups. Ryan certainly looks like he has the best odds to do so based on the evidence at hand, though.