2020 NFL Draft: The Green Bay Packers absolutely blew it

The Green Bay Packers royally screwed up the 2020 NFL Draft. Here’s how GM Brian Gutekunst and HC Matt LaFleur absolutely blew it.

The Green Bay Packers absolutely blew it in the 2020 NFL Draft.

This is not meant as an indictment of the players they selected, but the strategy of general manager Brian Gutekunst and head coach Matt LaFleur of building a championship contender in a clear window to compete.

They failed horribly.

The Packers entered the 2020 NFL Draft with one of the league’s most obvious needs at the wide receiver position in the deepest draft class to come along in a while at that position.

They drafted no one.

They lost a key starter at offensive tackle in Bryan Bulaga with David Bakhtiari in the last year of his contract.

They drafted no tackles.

Instead of addressing areas of the team that actually needed improvement, the Packers moved up in the first round to select quarterback Jordan Love out of Utah State, followed by running back AJ Dillon and tight end/fullback Josiah Deguara in the second and third rounds.

Let’s recap the draft class for the Packers as a whole:

1. Jordan Love, QB, Utah State
2. AJ Dillon, RB, Boston College
3. Josiah Deguara, TE/FB, Cincinnati
4. Kamal Martin, LB, Minnesota (5th round)
5. Jon Runyan, OL, Michigan (6th round)
6. Jake Hanson, C, Oregon (6th round)
7. Simon Stepaniak, OL, Indiana (6th round)
8. Vernon Scott, S, TCU (7th round)
9. Jonathan Garvin, LB, Miami (7th round)

First and foremost, the Packers failed their current roster by making a play for quarterback Jordan Love in the first round. This has absolutely nothing to do with Love as a prospect or person, but everything to do with the way the Packers are presently constructed.

The cute narrative that this is exactly the same age Brett Favre was when the Packers first drafted Aaron Rodgers is a fun stat, but that’s about it. Back then, for those who don’t actually know or remember, Favre had been threatening retirement and the Packers were really in the dark as to whether or not he would be playing one year or three years or however long after that.

Rodgers was also a potential first overall pick who fell to the bottom of the first round in 2005 when he had no business being there. The Packers got a great value and insurance in case Favre would retire.

The three-year succession plan was not something they had previously agreed to with Favre or something like that.

Now you have Rodgers, whose relationship with his own family is not great, having to fend off daily and weekly reports about:

• Love’s development
• His relationship with Love
• How he’s helping mentor Love
• How he feels about having a young QB behind him like he was to Favre
• If he and Matt LaFleur are okay
• If he will finish out his contract in Green Bay
• If he is considering retirement

Rodgers has made it clear that he wants to follow Tom Brady’s model of playing into his 40s, and even at the age of 36 going on 37 in December, Rodgers is playing at an All-Pro level. He had 26 touchdowns and only four interceptions last season, throwing for 4,002 yards.

That was with Davante Adams receiving the lion’s share of targets (127) in the Packers’ offense, followed by running back Aaron Jones and tight end Jimmy Graham, who is no longer with the team.

What Rodgers – who has all four years of his four-year, $134 million contract extension with the Packers starting up in the 2020 season – really needed was a wide receiver or two, a tight end, and some help at offensive tackle.

Instead, the Packers drafted his replacement, leaving Rodgers’ future with the team in jeopardy and likely his relationship with Gutekunst and LaFleur all but completely destroyed.

Rodgers will almost undoubtedly play for the Packers this season, but how well is it going to go knowing there’s a rookie hotshot breathing down his neck? Rodgers is certainly not going to give away his job, but the selection of Jordan Love was basically the Packers’ front office and coaching staff flipping a sand timer upside down on Rodgers’ time with the team.

You can almost bet that Rodgers is going to want to dictate his future, and having a player behind him on the depth chart the Packers traded up to get could very well cause turmoil. Maybe not to the degree of Josh McDaniels and Jay Cutler in Denver back in 2009, but this is a similar power play by LaFleur to get ‘his guy’ at QB with Rodgers approaching the back end of his 30s.

Aside from the fact that this was a horrendous move from Aaron Rodgers’ perspective, the Packers also used their second-round pick at the running back position. That’s not necessarily a terrible decision, but again — this team had a clear need at wide receiver in the 2020 NFL Draft. Aaron Jones, the Packers’ starting running back in 2019, was one of the breakout stars in the NFL last season.

In addition to carrying the load for the Packers’ running game with 16 rushing touchdowns and over 1,000 yards, he proved his dual-threat abilities with 49 receptions.

Jamaal Williams behind him averaged a solid 4.3 yards per carry and added five receiving touchdowns as well.

AJ Dillon coming in from Boston College is certainly a big, physical, athletic specimen at the running back position, but this is more about areas of tremendous need the Packers passed on in order to get him.

Not to worry, though, they could certainly address the receiver or tight end position in round three. Right?

The Packers played cute in round three of the 2020 NFL Draft, taking Cincinnati Bearcats tight end/h-back Josiah Deguara over the likes of Missouri’s Albert Okwuegbunam, Dayton’s Adam Trautman, Florida Atlantic’s Harrison Bryant, and a number of others.

This was not a tremendously deep class at the tight end position, but the Packers opted for Deguara in round three over higher-rated players not just at tight end but at other positions.

At least Deguara can potentially come in and help Rodgers out right away as a pass catcher, but the Packers’ failure to add any receiver at all, much less someone dynamic who could actually propel the offense forward, was a catastrophic mistake on their part.

Time will tell if Matt LaFleur and Brian Gutekunst made the right calls with these picks. Again, this is not anything against the players they picked specifically, but about the draft strategy itself making absolutely no sense for the way this team is presently constructed.

It would not be a surprise if this resulted in an ugly divorce between the Packers and Aaron Rodgers at some point in the near future, and both Gutekunst and LaFleur will have to really hope that Jordan Love is the real deal whenever that day comes.