In a loaded class of athletes, the Packers could avoid players who didn't test altogether

We know Brian Gutekunst has a thing for elite athletes, especially early in the draft. In a class rich with them, those who didn't or couldn't test, may be off the board entirely.

Good morning!

It’s draft month, and we are just a little over three weeks away from the first round kicking off for the 2024 NFL draft. After a surprise playoff run, the Packers are poised to build on one of the best young teams in the league with a league-high 11 draft picks including five in the top 100.

And the way this particular draft sets up, Green Bay likely won’t have to adjust the way they view prospects to make room on their roster for some top-tier players. Today's edition of The Leap looks at the top of the draft setting up ideally for how the Packers tend to stack players, the kicking situation

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The top of the draft is stacked with athletes, so non-testers need not apply for a job in Green Bay

Peter Bukowski: Brian Gutekunst always drafts athletes early. He’s not betting on outliers, so while a player like Tyler Nubin from Minnesota put together solid tape and has the ball skills new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley covets, Nubin’s Relative Athletic Score below 3 eliminates him from both 25 and 44. At least, based on history.

The former standout Big 10 safety would be the worst athlete, by testing, the Packers have drafted in the top 100 under Gutekunst by far. Maybe they believe in the tape enough, but this class has too many options to take that kind of risk. I wrote about this remarkably deep class at key positions earlier this spring.

It’s not just that Gutekunst has and will avoid below-average athletes. This is the draft where he could avoid players for whom we aren’t entirely sure about athletically. It’s added risk in a draft where the Packers don’t have to take it, not with this group of players.

And for those who go, “Draft the best football player,” that’s still the goal. Assessing and projecting prospects takes artistic vision more than rigorous scientific methodology. That being said, having a full athletic profile makes it easier to compare against peers and historical norms. That’s why every single first-round pick Gutekunst selected had compiled a full athletic profile, qualifying from RAS, and was an elite (80th percentile or better) athlete by testing.

There’s less risk with more information.

That’s particularly true in this draft class where nearly every top prospect not only has an athletic profile, but has a terrific one.

On the Athletic Consensus Board, just one player in the top 32 with a qualifying profile has a sub-elite number. Duke’s Graham Barton didn’t do full testing, but the numbers he did put up, like a sub-5 40-yard dash and 90th or better percentiles in agility drills, add him to this list. Kool-Aid McKinstry ran sub-4.5 with a Jones fracture in his foot and Cooper DeJean expects to work out for teams sometime this month. Assuming the medicals check out, they’ve likely done enough.

If the Packers want to stick to their model, it will be easy in this draft, and players who haven’t tested, hurt themselves in a meaningful way on the Packers board. There will be too many quality players with proven athleticism to pick from for Green Bay to have to force it the way they did when they reached for Josh Myers and Amari Rodgers.

This is not the draft class for that.

Speaking of history, the Packers haven’t drafted an offensive tackle in the first round since 2011 and the last time they a guard or center was last century. Will that change this year?

PB: When the Packers turned over their tackles from Chad Clifton and Mark Tauscher, Ted Thompson used first-round picks in back-to-back drafts on tackles. Bryan Bulaga manned the right side for a decade in Green Bay and while Derek Sherrod suffered a career-threatening injury, a fourth-round pick named David Bakhtiari took his place. That worked out.

Green Bay hasn’t needed to draft an offensive tackle early since 2011. And maybe they don’t need to in 2024 either with Rasheed Walker and Zach Tom forming the best young tackle tandem in the NFL. Still, if Gutekunst thought he could upgrade over Walker and/or find a player good enough to justify kicking Tom inside to center, they’d likely consider it.

Gutekunst used a top-50 pick on Elgton Jenkins to play guard and a second-round pick on Josh Myers to play center. He’s not afraid to use premium draft capital on linemen and the Packers belief going back to Ron Wolf was teams build in the trenches first. Guard and center are potential pain points for the Packers, and while draft history says NFL teams stink at ordering interior offensive linemen, Green Bay has been out-performing the league by drafting freaky athletic tackles and moving them inside.

Players like Graham Barton, Arizona’s Jordan Morgan, and if he were to fall, Washington’s Troy Fautanu, would all qualify and each are considered to be first-round talents or on the borderline, which puts them squarely in play at either pick 25 or 41.

Greg Joseph is going to be the starting kick Week 1 right? Right?

PB: Don’t hold your breath, but the Packers gave themselves a quality insurance policy. The idea of drafting and developing works great when players show right away they’re capable of quality play with few downsides. Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, and Karl Brooks all demonstrated early on they would be more addition than subtraction when they’re on the field.

Anders Carlson … well, he hasn’t. He was one of the worst kickers in the league last year and never showed much in the way of leg talent, didn’t boom kicks from 50-plus or show late-game mental toughness with clutch kicks in must-win games. Just the opposite.

Meanwhile, Joseph set the record for game-winning kicks in Minnesota even setting a new Vikings record for longest field goal that happened to also be on a game-winning kick. He’s been a multi-time Special Teams Player of the Week and led the league in touchback percentage in 2021. He’s objectively a better kicker right now than Carlson and Green Bay can’t afford to let their ethos get in the way of winning football games.

But they might. Unfortunately, we’ve seen them give too much rope to players like the aforementioned Amari Rodgers who fumbled punt after punt but remained on the field.