GREEN BAY, Wis. — Getting anything of substance out of Brian Gutekunst at his annual pre-draft press conference is harder than watching your favorite team blow an 18-point second-half lead to its rival in the playoffs.
Too soon? Sorry.
The Green Bay Packers general manager has no incentive to show his hand about what he’ll do come draft time. Sifting through his many words for notable takeaways is like pulling teeth, but call me Dentist Schneidman because that’s what I’m about to try to do after Gutekunst spoke with reporters at Lambeau Field on Tuesday for about 28 minutes. Let’s dive in.
Trading Wicks
First, a non-draft item from Gutekunst. This was his first time at the podium since trading wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks to the Philadelphia Eagles earlier this month for a 2026 fifth-round pick and a 2027 sixth-round pick.
“It’s always tough to move off of a player that you feel is as good as Dontayvion was for us,” Gutekunst said of his 2023 fifth-round pick. “I think he’s got a really bright career ahead of him. The situation we were in with the amount of players that we had in that room, what we’re probably going to do in the future, him being in the last year of his contract, it just made a little bit of sense.”
In other words, the Packers weren’t going to extend Wicks after this coming season and you can’t blame them. Christian Watson and Jayden Reed are both entering contract years, and they take priority over Wicks, a talented route-runner but a player who was banged up last season and never came close to replicating his standout performance on Thanksgiving in Detroit.
Christian Watson and Jayden Reed clearly sit atop the Packers’ wide receiver depth chart along with last year’s first-round pick Matthew Golden after the departures of Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks. (Tork Mason / Imagn Images)
“Coming out of the ’22 draft class, I think we were lucky enough to retain a bunch of those guys (Devonte Wyatt on his fifth-year option, Watson on a short-term extension, Sean Rhyan and Zach Tom on long-term extensions), but a bunch of those guys signed elsewhere this year, too,” Gutekunst said, referring to Quay Walker, Romeo Doubs, Kingsley Enagbare and Rasheed Walker leaving in free agency. “And we’re probably going to get compensatory picks for those players. I don’t know for sure if we’re going to be able to do that moving forward next year and the year after, so the ability to get two picks for a player (Wicks) that we weren’t sure exactly how it was going to fit into our future plans, it just made a lot of sense. I do think it was good for us and I think it’s going to be good for Dontayvion, too, because he’ll see his opportunities increase there, as well.”
Speaking of trades
Doing my best to read between the lines, it doesn’t sound like Gutekunst will trade into the first round. He’d need to jump at least 20 spots from No. 52 in the second round to do so, so this comes as no surprise given the draft capital it would take. The Packers would’ve picked at No. 20, but the Dallas Cowboys own that selection from the Micah Parsons trade.
So will Gutekunst and his personnel staff kick their feet up and have a pizza party in the war room on Thursday night? Not quite, even if they don’t plan on picking.
“We’ve talked about that, joked about it a little bit, but I think we’re going to do our normal process,” Gutekunst said. “The phones won’t be as busy. That’s for sure. But we’re going to kind of keep our ears open and we put a lot of work into this with the players that are going to be picked in that round, and this year it’ll be a little bit more fun just because it’s going to be less chaotic … we’ll be talking through things, whether that’s with the individual scouts, whether it’s with Matt (LaFleur), whether it’s with our medical people and stuff like that.
“It’s always interesting how it falls, how it affects every team that picks, the trades that are involved, so we’ll follow that process. What happens on Thursday will affect Friday and Saturday, so we’ll be in tune with it. And again, like I said, it’ll probably be a little different, but I do think it’s important — we put a lot of work into these guys that you kind of look at this, OK, hey, how do we see this shaking out? What would we do here if it was us? Things like that.”
As for trading up into the 40s within the second round, Gutekunst sounded far more open to that possibility, even if the Packers currently hold only eight picks.
“The compensatory formula, we won’t know exactly what we have for next year, but we feel pretty good about the amount of picks we’re going to have next year,” Gutekunst said (the Packers are projected by Over The Cap to have 11, including four compensatory picks). “So I do feel like if the right player were there that we would be able to go get him … if we end up waiting 51 picks before we pick, that’ll be a long time and hopefully I have the patience and the discipline to do that.”
Help on the way
Gutekunst didn’t quite agree with fans who think the cornerback room needs an overhaul, but he did acknowledge that it’s the position group needing the most reinforcements.
“We are going to add numbers there,” Gutekunst said. “That’s probably our group … we’re going to need to add the most numbers, so we’ll see how that goes.”
The Packers return Keisean Nixon and Carrington Valentine as their top two cornerbacks, but both are entering contract years. They signed veteran free agent Benjamin St-Juste, who has played 3,230 career defensive snaps. Gutekunst said he “feels good” about all three getting playing time.
But behind those three are Kamal Hadden, coming off a major leg injury, Shemar Bartholomew and Jaylin Simpson. Simpson and Bartholomew only played in the meaningless regular-season finale in Minnesota. Bo Melton is still listed as a cornerback and not a wide receiver, but he didn’t play a single defensive snap last season.
Beefing up?
It’s interesting to compare Gutekunst’s answers to separate questions about his cornerback room and his offensive line depth.
“We are going to add numbers there,” and “I feel really good about it,” the latter his answer to a question about what he has behind his starting five up front, are vastly different. Could that mean he drafts multiple cornerbacks and no offensive linemen? Perhaps, but he could also draft multiple offensive linemen and one or no cornerbacks. He never specified whether those cornerbacks will be added on Day 2, Day 3 or after the draft via rookie free agency or veteran additions. He also never said his confidence in his reserve offensive linemen means he won’t address the position as early as Friday. See what I mean when I say it’s hard to deduce what he’s actually going to do in the draft from these press conferences?
“Obviously, we’ve got a couple guys coming off injuries. Zach is coming off an injury. Jacob (Monk) is coming off an injury, but I really like our starting five and I thought Jacob did a really good job in that last game at center, so I feel really good about his ability,” Gutekunst said. “We’re going to get (Travis) Glover back, as well, (Donovan) Jennings and (Darian) Kinnard … so I feel really good about our whole group and the competition that’s in that room. We’re always going to try to add to the offensive line. There’s only so many big guys in the world that can play at a high level, but I feel good about it.”
Gutekunst has drafted multiple offensive linemen in five of the last six years and this weekend might make it six of seven after the Packers released Elgton Jenkins and let Walker leave in free agency.