Acme Packing Company
If Brian Gutekunst wants to move up in round one or two, how far can he realistically get?
Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst is no stranger to making moves on the weekend of the NFL Draft. Gutekunst’s very first draft saw him trade all the way back from the 14th pick to #27 overall, then move up again minutes later to #18. Since then, he has been more than happy to wheel and deal his way through the draft and being much more willing to move up than his predecessor, Ted Thompson.
Thompson famously only made a single trade up involving a round one pick. That happened in 2009, when he moved up from round two to select Clay Matthews late in the first round. Gutekunst, on the other hand, has made three draft-day trades to move up in round one in just seven drafts and a fourth, just days before the 2023 Draft, that sent a disgruntled quarterback to New York and moved the team up a few spots.
With Gutey showing a penchant for climbing the board, it’s worth looking at just how far the Packers’ draft capital could get them, either with a move up from their first-round pick at #23 overall or from their second-rounder at #54. Let’s do some math.
If the Packers see a player like Michigan cornerback Will Johnson or Arizona wideout Tetairoa McMillan slide into the teens, it’s not crazy to think that Gutekunst could get aggressive. Green Bay has done the most work on McMillan, at least publicly, of any team in the NFL this spring, and they could be inclined to make a move to get him if he is still on the board in the mid-teens.
Here are how some potential trade scenarios could work out, using the Rich Hill draft trade chart to come up with roughly equivalent values for the teams involved.
This one is almost perfect on the chart and Gutekunst would be making a deal with former coworker John Schneider, with whom he has traded up in the past. The Packers traded with Seattle in the first round of the 2018 draft as well, getting pick #18 back that year as well and using it on Jaire Alexander. Green Bay sent picks 27, 76, and 186 for 18 and 248.
In this scenario, the Packers send their third-round pick to move up five spots and get back a pick late in the fifth round to balance things out.
This is about as aggressive that the Packers can get without giving up their second-round draft choice. This trade works out evenly on the Rich Hill chart and would find the Packers sending their third- and fourth-round selections to move up eight spots.
Here’s...
