What Pre-Draft Visits Mean For Packers

Brooks Reed was the only highly-rated prospect the Packers worked out.

By the look of it, pre-draft visits mean absolutely nothing for the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers brought around 20 players in for pre-draft visits, although that number could be more, since the team isn’t required to report them.

They also worked out a few players at other sites. In all, each organization is allowed 30 pre-draft visits visits and can put players through workouts elsewhere all they want.

How many of those players did the Packers end up selecting in the [intlink id=”1476″ type=”category”]2011 NFL Draft[/intlink]?

One — North Carolina tight end [intlink id=”1629″ type=”category”]Ryan Taylor[/intlink], who the Packers selected in the seventh round and is probably destined to be no more than a special teams contributor if he makes the team.

What’s even more interesting is, if you look at the list of players the Packers worked out prior to the draft, only one was considered a high-level prospect — Arizona linebacker Brooks Reed, who was ultimately drafted by the [intlink id=”275″ type=”category”]Houston Texans[/intlink] in the second round.

The rest of the guys the Packers looked at prior to the draft were all drafted late or not at all. In other words, [intlink id=”20″ type=”category”]Ted Thompson [/intlink] historically only takes the time to work out largely-unknown, late-round prospects, while other teams are busy looking at high-level guys.

Pro Football Talk tried to make sense of pre-draft visits last week and came to the same conclusion.

The Texans, Bears, Jaguars, and Packers concern themselves almost strictly with late-round, undrafted types when scheduling visits. For example, the player drafted earliest with whom we know Green Bay formally visited was Markell Carter, the 194th overall pick.

Obviously, they’re not counting Reed’s workout, which likely took place outside of Green Bay, but that’s an anomaly for the Packers anyway.

And as usual, Ted Thompson is an anomaly in the NFL. In all, 21 of 32 players selected in the first round worked out for the teams that drafted them.