GREEN BAY, Wis. – Everybody loves NFL draft grades. Just admit it. However, those grades are usually as memorable as that fast-food chicken sandwich you scarfed down.
Glutton for self-punishment, Yahoo’s Eric Edholm went back to take a fresh look at his 2019 draft grades.
At the time, he gave the Packers a C-plus for their haul of outside linebacker Rashan Gary and safety Darnell Savage in the first round, guard Elgton Jenkins in the second round, tight end Jace Sternberger in the third round, defensive tackle Kingsley Keke in the fifth round, cornerback Ka’dar Hollman and running back Dexter Williams in the sixth round and inside linebacker Ty Summers in the seventh round.
Edholm called Savage the Packers’ best pick and Gary their worst. With Gary, Edholm noted his mediocre production at Michigan and how his skill-set mimicked those of the outside linebackers they had added in free agency, Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith.
“There’s nothing to gush over and nothing to hate here, despite Packers fans griping about how the first round worked out,” Edholm wrote. “The first four picks add depth and competition to trouble spots in recent years, augmenting what the team did in free agency, and Keke and Summers might have been nice Day 3 value picks. And though we would have liked to see a pass catcher and an offensive tackle added higher in the mix, the Packers did OK for themselves overall, even with this class lacking a hang-your-hat pick.”
As it turns out, Gary and Jenkins have been hang-your-hat picks, and Savage has been pretty good, too. Sternberger was a third-round bust, and only Summers remains among the Day 3 contingent.
So, as Edholm notes, his draft grade for the Packers missed the mark. He then poked fun at himself in the “How we did” section.
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“We seriously hedged hard in both our favorite and least-favorite picks, saying that we kind of liked them but kind of didn’t, and this is the kind of wishy-washy journalism that needs to be thrown in an acid bath.”
Meanwhile, The 33rd Team took a different approach to a redraft. Here’s author Peter Engler’s explanation:
It takes three years to evaluate a draft class, but those picks will always be set in stone. Regardless of talent, it’s been shown that first-round picks will get larger free agent contracts and have longer careers simply due to their draft status, so let’s do a re-draft that recognizes this.
Instead of switching around players, we’re instead going to evaluate how much a team would trade to get the player at that spot. For example, Kyler Murray is still going to be the first overall pick, but how much would a team trade for a rookie Murray?
In an acknowledgment of two bad transactions, the Raiders dumped edge defender Clelin Ferrell – a bust as the fourth overall pick of the draft – on the Packers for overpriced and past-his-prime tight end Jimmy Graham.
Two wrongs don’t make a right but the finances, at least, work out.
While then Raiders GM Mike Mayock made a colossal mistake with Ferrell, Packers GM Brian Gutekunst hit a home run with his projection of Gary as the 12th pick of the draft. The Packers would gain quite a haul in a projected trade of Gary.
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