GREEN BAY — There are very few guarantees in the National Football League, but one thing is for certain: Every player — no matter how talented he is, no matter how productive he is, no matter how large his paycheck is — will, at some point, face adversity.

And while Brian Gutekunst doesn’t wish hardship on any player, the Green Bay Packers general manager also knows that no amount of film study, and no battery of drills or physical fitness tests can tell him how a prospect will handle the professional setbacks and challenges he will ultimately face.

Which is why, in addition to 40-yard dash times and video clips and intelligence tests and personal interviews, Gutekunst takes a keen interest in what draftees have overcome or endured to reach the precipice of the NFL.

Although such an approach might seem like a recent development — brought on by an era of college football where players sign lucrative NIL deals and have the freedom to enter the transfer portal at the first sign of not getting what they want or feel they deserve — Gutekunst insists it has long been part of his evaluation of players.

“I’d say we always have [valued it],” Gutekunst explained after choosing eight players during last month’s NFL Draft. “There are times where you run into some guys that maybe haven’t [gone through it], and when you don’t know how they’re going to react to adversity, that can be tough. Especially in the National Football League.

“If the first time they’re facing adversity is here, that can be difficult. So knowing that they’ve already been through something and learned how to get to the other side of it and persevere, it’s important. Because they’re going to go through adversity — there’s no doubt about it.

“It’s going to be hard and they’re going to question themselves and their confidence is going to get shaken at times. And they need to be able to get through that to perform at this level. So it is important to us, and it always has been.”

Three times during the draft, when discussing a player he’d just selected, Gutekunst said, “He’s had adversity in his life and he’s come out the other side,” or a variation thereof.

He said it about first-round pick Matthew Golden, and he said it about third-round pick Savion Williams, and he said it about fourth-round pick Barryn Sorrell.

“I think for any good scouting department, you have to wrap your mind around the fact that these are young men who’ve been through a life — their life to this point is different than how I grew up in a small town in southwestern Wisconsin,” said Packers director of football operations Milt Hendrickson, a Blanchardville, Wis., native who was a multi-sport star at Pecatonica High School and who has known Gutekunst since the two were together at UW-La Crosse.

“So many of these kids come from so many different backgrounds and adversity. But I think if you have guys who’ve been through tough times — in their minds, whatever that tough time is — and they’ve come out OK on the other side, that they’re going to be calloused enough to be able to handle the day in and day out, what it takes, not only to be in this league, but then to be successful.”

To be clear, Gutekunst and Hendrickson aren’t just talking about not being invited to a high-school all-star game, or a guy’s dream school not recruiting him, or being snubbed in the all-conference balloting in college.

They especially mean real-life stuff — the experiences that typify the old adage about how adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.

“It gives you perspective, No. 1,” Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said. “Resilience is key, and I think you see it especially in our league or any competitive league. There’s going to be moments of adversity and there’s going to be some struggle. And if you’re not tough minded, it’s hard to make it through the other side of that.

“I think we’ve seen it with just with our team over the course of two years. And as painful as it is, in the moment, from a team standpoint, sometimes you’re better for going through it.”

Now, let’s not be cliché or flippant here. Football players aren’t the only ones who endure tough times, and they’re not the only ones who persevere through them, either.

But to understand why this is something Gutekunst believes is worth thinking about, the Packers need not look any further than Golden, who became the first wide receiver the franchise has selected in the first round since Javon Walker in 2002.

After being told of Gutekunst’s comment about appreciating the way he’d battled through real-life adversity, Golden was then asked what the GM might have been referring to.

Golden had previously shared before the draft how his grandmother, who’d helped raise him, lost her home several years ago. He vowed to use the money from his first NFL contract to buy back the house, which he said “is basically abandoned” but is on the market.

But Golden also revealed last week that times were often so difficult when he and his mother, Geri, were on their own that they were homeless.

“Me and my mom, at times, we stayed in hotels and there was times we couldn’t pay for a room, so we stayed in front of Walmart in Brenham, Texas,” Golden recounted during last weekend’s rookie minicamp. “So I reflect back to that whenever I am playing football, it just keeps me motivated to keep going.

“Everything that happened to me, everything that I went through, it happened for a reason. That’s what got me here. To be in this position, you know it wasn’t easy getting here. I know what I did, the people that I had around me that helped me get to this point.

“What it took to get here wasn’t easy, but I always stayed grounded, stayed committed to the process and whatever opportunity that came to me, I made the most of it. Just knowing that’s what it took to get here and that’s what going to keep me here.”

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