The Green Bay Packers more or less failed to address the edge rusher position in the NFL Draft. It’s a position that many thought was their biggest need.
Their only pick at the position was seventh-round pick and small-school prospect Kendall Donnerson. Although a freakish athlete — he ran a 4.44 40 and had a 40-inch vertical — Donnerson will still face an uphill battle to make the roster.
As it stands, the Packers are hoping Clay Matthews and Nick Perry stay healthy (unlikely) and Vince Biegel and Kyler Fackrell make the leap (maybe). The wild card is former practice squad player Reggie Gilbert, who as flashed plenty of potential.
That’s what they call a lot of ifs.
So will the Packers go into the season with the group of edge rushers they have? Maybe, maybe not. Coach Mike McCarthy has suggested the Packers will continue to look for more players to add to the group.
“Player acquisition is still going on as we speak and it will continue all the way up to training camp. So I get it,” McCarthy said. “Pass rush is something that we want to add more competition to and hopefully that will be answered as we move forward.”
The question is how?
At this point, the Packers have three options. They can make a trade. They can hope someone with something left gets released between now and training camp. The most likely scenario is they pick up a guy on the eve of the season who was released on final cuts.
This happened just last year when the Packers added Chris Odom after he was released by the Falcons. Unfortunately, Odom didn’t make much of an impact. He played in just seven games and finished with six tackles and no sacks.
It would be great if the Packers could do better this year.
It is disappointing that the packers couldn’t add a legit pass rusher in the draft. But I am glad they didn’t reach for a guy and stuck to their board. It was a poor draft for pass rushers.
Paging Connor Barwin
The annual “we need an edge rusher discussion”.
The 2 edge rushers we have, will be paid 50 million dollars combined for the 2017 and 28 seasons.
50 million spent on edge rushers, but we keep needing an edge rusher.
What’s wrong with this picture?
In more positive news…this Packer team doesn’t have to worry anymore about carrying around the dead weight of a receiver who lead the league the league in td’s 15 months ago.
Maybe this could help. Ahmad Brooks is still available, he chipped in his 1 1/2 sacks last season, all for only 3.5 million.
Remember, Big Ted’s Free Agency Big Adventure.
I still don’t see who were we bidding against.
He was supposed to bring the Packers a toughness, an attitude on defense. The only thing he brought to Green Bay was his bank routing and account number for direct deposit.
If there was ever any question McCarthy was making it up as he goes along this portion of his statement “…hopefully that will be answered as we move forward” should remove any doubt. “Hopefully” McCarthy figures it out in what, his 13th season as a highly successful NFL head football coach. That will be answered as we move forward…
I thought we were making a trade for Shane Ray?
Jeff Janis would have made an excellent edge rusher,but
lol…looking over, analyzing and computing Janis combine metrics, if he added 42.68 lbs. He would be a 12.9 sack per season guy. Also…if he can do that for one season, in Green Bay, that should be worth a 5 year contract at 14 million per.