Every year, we react to how our beloved team picks during the draft.
In future years, we sometimes misremember how we felt.
To help us remember, I like to write everything down as it happens. Then, when we look back, we can get a clear reminder of how things went down. I love doing this every year because it provides great perspective and helps us learn. All of these are based on reactions from Twitter and other fan-based comments.
ROUND 1: Jordan Love – This pick was shocking to me. I understand why they would do it (and wrote about the timing is pretty nice and how the worst case scenario isn’t that bad), but it wasn’t necessarily my first choice. On the whole, Packers fans hated this pick. More than hating the pick, they hated traded up. They thought Love would still be there at 30, didn’t feel Love was worthy of being the quarterback of the future, felt Love would be off his rookie deal by the time Rodgers retired (because Rodgers said he wanted to play into his 40s), and felt the team should have used the pick on Patrick Queen to shore up the run defense.
ROUND 2: AJ Dillon – A power back that is the biggest sign of the change that is coming in offense (read more about it here). Fans didn’t like this pick, either, most feeling it was too high (at best) and many feeling Antonio Gibson was a better option. As the draft wore on, the sentiment seemed to change and some people came around on the selection, possibly because people started to see what the Packers were doing to the offense and maybe watched more of his highlights.
ROUND 3: Josiah Deguara – Maybe the biggest surprise of the draft, the Packers took an H back that was considered a borderline UDFA by some. when a ton of highly-rated tight ends were still on the board. No one liked this pick and it was viewed as a historically bad choice by the Packers.
ROUND 5: Kamal Martin – In general, people thought Martin was a solid pick if he could get over his injuries, but most fans were just complaining that they didn’t take a wide receiver.
ROUND 6a: Jon Runyan – This pick seemed like the one that fans most universally approved of. He was also the only one of my Packers Draft Crushes that the Packers actually took.
ROUND 6b: Jake Hanson – The general views on the Hansen pick were warm. He was viewed as a depth lineman who could eventually take over for Linsley.
ROUND 6c: Simon Stepaniak – Fans were lukewarm on offensive linemen by the time they took Stepaniak. Most viewed him a just another body to throw into the offensive linemen depth competition.
ROUND 7a: Vernon Scott – Most people hadn’t heard of him and just felt we didn’t need a safety. It seemed like receiver fever was getting to people.
ROUND 7b: Jon Garvin – Most people were surprisingly high on this pick, feeling he had good potential as a depth rusher. A couple people thought he could be Rashan Gary’s replacement (and I’m like 60% sure they were being sarcastic).
On the whole, fans were very disappointed and found this graphic of consensus grades from the “experts” as hard evidence and indisputable truth that the Packers are doomed:
🚨 2020 NFL Draft | Team Grades
💡 UPDATED version with 22 total evaluationsNow including the grades by:@McClain_on_NFL@PriscoCBS@adrianbb89 🇩🇪@Eric_Edholm@phillip_heilman@HaydenWinks@evansilva@MikeTagliereNFL@sidelinerep 🇩🇪
Thanks for your work – much appreciated 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/rgs3NpEA1e
— René Bugner (@RNBWCV) April 28, 2020
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There you have it – this is how fans, as a whole, felt at the time of these picks.
We’ll open this time capsule and review the choices in a couple years. Feel free to bookmark this page and check it out whenever you feel like it.
This is a great way to learn more about the draft – the single more important part of building an NFL football team.
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Check out Packers Draft Central 2020 for all our 2020 NFL Draft coverage!
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