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With depth needed in the back seven, who matches up to Green Bay’s typical preferences?
It is that time of year once again, with the combine and pro days now in the rearview mirror, the Green Bay Packers athletic thresholds big board can ride once again. This year, it will be broken down into individual articles, with more explanations provided. The time period used to generate the thresholds begins when Ted Thompson took over for the Packers back in 2005 and runs through the entirety of Brian Gutekunst’s tenure. Despite being part of the same tree, Ron Wolf’s tenure is not included as athletic testing data from the 1990s is much more sparse.
We wrap up our series today with the back seven. I’m excluding safeties this year, since I’d be pretty stunned if Green Bay targeted the position in the top 150 given their room is pretty full with three second-year players and Xavier McKinney.
Green Bay is not overly picky at linebacker, and has had many different body types. Because the Packers haven’t used prime draft capital on the position until recent years, the historical data is a lot of pretty big guys that move pretty well, which, with Quay Walker and Edgerrin Coope,r became pretty long guys that move extremely well. On the flip side, they’ve also drafted Isaiah McDuffie, who is a traffic barrel, a stout run defender who is much more modest athletically, which we’ve unfortunately seen any time he’s asked to drop back into coverage. We’re looking at a minimum weight of 225 pounds, so no dime backer/basically safeties on this list. A minimum forty-yard dash time of 4.65, and at least passable agilities with a 4.4 or better in the shuttle and 7.3 or better in the three-cone.
NOTE: Green highlighting means they met all criteria, yellow means they narrowly missed on one or were trending towards completion but did not complete all the necessary drills, white means they did not complete enough testing to indicate one way or another
With Edgerrin Cooper looking like a star, and Quay Walker’s play improving in the back half of last season, I wouldn’t expect Green Bay to spend prime draft capital at the position, which means it is a good bet that the depth reinforcements will come on day three. Good news for Green Bay is that a bunch of players meet their typical criteria at that point, with players like Barrett Carter, Jack Kiser, Kobe King, Teddye Buchanan, and Cody Simon checking all of the boxes. Depth and competition for Isaiah McDuffie will most likely come in rounds 4-6, where these players are expected to be taken.
Notable Prospects Failing: Chris Paul Jr (weight, agilities)
Green Bay is pretty particular in the defensive backfield as a whole. You can’t be too short, you can’t be too light, you can’t be too slow, and you can’t be too stiff. The Mendoza line for the Packers was Jaire Alexander, measuring...
