#44 Elgton Jenkins – G – Mississippi State
#75 Jace Sternberger – TE – Texas A&M
Well, love it or hate it, the newest additions to the Packers so far are: Rashan Gary, Darnell Savage, Jr., Elgton Jenkins, and Jace Sternberger. Surprising many, but not all, the Packers front office used the first round to continue their agenda of bolstering Mike Pettine’s Year 2 defense. The team completely ignored the Wide Receiver class and only grabbed an OL and a low tier TE on the offensive front. I think it all keeps coming back to the same thing: Mike Pettine is returning from last year so the team wants to play their strength next year in the fact that this system is maturing. How well it continues to mature with so many players swapped in and out since last season remains to be seen.
Click here to view PFF Draft Profile of Elgton Jenkins
“Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships.” – Bear Bryant
Let’s be honest, the Packers do not need to sell tickets. Having a QB like Rodgers that can think and react like a NASA supercomputer in the pocket is the exact type of versatility the team needs in this situation. If you’re going to make the best of an offense like ours, it’s hard to find a better QB to do it. I think it is obvious at this point that Gutekunst is planning to rely heavily on Aaron Rodgers and returning defensive coordinator Mike Pettine to provide the team stability while they continue to groom guys like Aaron Jones into the stars they’re very capable of being. An O-Line pick brings the team one step closer to protecting Rodgers and allowing him extra time.
Jace Sternberger seems to have potential as a talented route runner but do not expect much productivity from him in the near future. As a whole, the NFC North welcomed three new tight ends. Detroit Lions, known for making the last high first round TE pick, made another high first round TE pick with T.J. Hockenson.
Not too bad and certainly not another 2015. While there is reasonably some debate as to the appropriateness of picking Rashan Gary at #12, the team seemed to have overall played it safe and did not take too much extra risk. I really like the Savage pick at safety for some breakneck speed and that 39.5-inch vertical jump. I can see Amos being a great mentor for him.
https://twitter.com/zachkruse2/status/1121944256573317120
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https://twitter.com/packers/status/1121997654752468992
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5 Comments
Could have been worse
Charley Casserly said Green bay won this draft. Does anyone get a banner for that? Detroit and Minnesota would hang that baby up in those dumps they call stadiums. But they can’t win a draft,or anything else.
Casserley is none too smart. He was a miserable failure as an exec. Does not know of what he says but likes ot play up to Cowboys and Packers fans — may even be told to do so. Also, you’ve chosen the one pundit who says the best about the Packers draft, not a typical one.
Gute the Bad started the day with two 1st round picks. Gary is worth a 1st rounder but there were two better players — better, more athletic, more talented, more successful in college — available at his same position. Sweat and Burns. Taking the third best player when you could have #1 or #2 within that position group alone is a great big giant L.
Then, incredibly, Gute the Bad turned the other 1st round pick into a 2nd rounder and minus two 4th rounders. He moved up to draft a 2nd round safety who would have been there at #30 and, if somehow not, then could have taken an even better safety in Juan Thornhill. Thornhill is the greater athlete and much more successful in college than Savage.
It is hard to imagine a worse run, more disastrous, round one for the Packers than what Gute the Bad pulled off.
Jenkins was decent value. Sternberger is slow. Keke is more of a 6th/7th rounder.
Enjoy your cold high school bleacher lacking individual seats moldy wreck of a stadium with your $12.00 brat-in-a-blankets. We’ll take our warm, bright, luxurious, comfortable seats in a clean modern beautiful work of art stadium. Packers too cheap to get an NFL quality stadium. Don’t worry, one day they will sell a bunch of pieces of paper with some writing on them to take the money from the poor and middle class of Green Bay area and reallocate it to benefit the rich (the real owners). Make no mistake the Packers have a conglomerate of private owners who make bank like crazy especially not needing to spend on a decent stadium. There are for profit shares and those people get all the money. The Packers are not “owned by the people”. They are owned by multiple rich people and get extra revenue from the dweebs who line up to buy worthless meaningless stock to line their already richly lined pockets.
We won’t hang a banner but yes, the Vikings did win this draft especially when compared to the Packers. Packers had two 1st round picks and converted them into one 1st, one 2nd, and minus two 4th round picks. Disaster! The Vikings had one 1st rounder. They used it to get a Top 10 value player (Garrett Bradbury) and used their 2nd round pick to obtain a late 1st round player (Irv Smith). Big win! We also got a late 2nd round player in the 4th (Dru Samia) and a 3rd rounder in the 6th (Oli Udoh) and a 4th rounder in the 7th (Kris Boyd). Big success!
Packers chose before the Vikings. They could have ended up with Bradbury instead of Jenkins (first 1st round pick), Irv Smith instead of Sternberger (2nd round pick), and Thornhill late in the 1st. Then OLB Chase Winovich in the 3rd round — who is like a T.J. Watt and will likely have a better career than Gary taken 12th overall by Gute the Bad.
Lions took Hockenson too early and a 5th round linebacker in the 2nd. Bears were gutted of picks and used their top pick on a slow RB.
Yes, Vikings easily had the best draft of the division. Hear me now, believe me later. We”ll revisit this in about three years, Fairy-Is. By the way, the Packers started the draft with double the “draft capital” as the Vikings so, by rights, they should have done twice as well. Even so, it looks like when all is said and done it will be only half as productive as the Vikings draft!
So, in the way I’d have run the Packers draft, the Packers would have ended up with a much better interior lineman (Bradbury over Jenkins), a faster more successful edge (Winovich over Gary), a faster better blocking TE (Smith over Sternberger), and a better safety who makes more plays (Thornhill over Savage). Then, with those 4th round picks I STILL have, I’d have taken Renell Wren to supplement the Defensive line and CB Isaiah Johnson (6’2″ and 4.40 40 yard dash to develop).
I filled all the same spots but with better players and added two extra players with great potential. That’s how you win a draft, Fairy-Is!
Geez Killer, that was the typical, ” even though we haven’t won a Super Bowl,yet I know it all” type of rant, that I’ve heard out of Viking fans for decades. I sure hope you send your assessment of the Packers draft to Gute. Maybe we can get you on board as the top scout before next April’s draft. You should have objected to the money they wasted on Cousins. You know, the guy you thought was the last piece to the puzzle, and would lead you to the promised land. Did you look up his record in the games that REALLY count. IT SUCKED! That should have been in your scouting report!