The Packers’ most pressing offseason need may be a cornerback.
The NFL is a place where depth can vanish quickly. For the Packers, such was the situation at cornerback, where strength quickly gave way to frailty.
GREEN BAY, Wisconsin: Now that the formal offseason has begun, what is the most pressing need facing the Green Bay Packers?
The response to that query last year was straightforward: anybody with a heartbeat, a modicum of athleticism, and the capacity to catch a football.
General manager Brian Gutekunst met those demands with a stellar draft, selecting tight ends Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft along with receivers Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks. The Packers were the only club since the 1970 merger to have four rookies with thirty or more receptions after all four of them developed into players with immediate impact.
Gutekunst now has to repeat the process. Though the team’s postseason run was largely the result of the offensive line, the Packers may be searching for their next franchise left tackle.
But the Packers nearly usually select defensive guys with their first-round pick, so that may be the course they take once more.
Marcus Mosher of the 33rd Team identified the most pressing need on each squad. It’s cornerback for Green Bay.
In the NFL, depth is ephemeral, and during this strange Green Bay winter, the Packers’ cornerback depth disappeared like a snowbank.
The Packers had competition for three spots at this time last year from Jaire Alexander, Rasul Douglas, Eric Stokes, and Keisean Nixon. With Alexander in the slot, would Joe Barry choose Douglas and Stokes as his perimeter cornerbacks? Or would Nixon play in the slot and Alexander, Douglas, and Stokes combine at cornerback?
Barry was never left with a choice.
After suffering a foot injury that ended his disastrous second NFL season early, Stokes took a while to recover and began the 2023 season on the physically unable to perform list. His three special teams snaps against Denver before being placed on injured reserve due to a hamstring ailment marked his brief comeback to game action.
In return for a third-round pick in the 2024 draft, Gutekunst sent Douglas and a fifth-round selection to the Buffalo Bills while Stokes was down.
With the Packers struggling at 2-5, the deal gave Stokes, a talented 2021 first-round prospect, a much-needed route to playing time. Following his return to health, Stokes started all of the games in the late season against the Buccaneers and Panthers, but he would later re-injure his hamstring and spend the remainder of the campaign on injured reserve.
Alexander, meantime, suffered the worst season of his career due to injuries, poor performance, and a one-game suspension for his self-appointed captaincy at Carolina.
Nixon, the team’s lone pillar of stability as the slot defender for all 17 games, rookie seventh-round pick Carrington Valentine, and journeyman veteran Corey Ballentine led the team in snap totals at the end of the season.
The way-too-early cornerback depth chart for 2024 is muddled, to say the least.
Alexander will return, but will he return to All-Pro form under new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley and a third position coach in as many seasons?
Valentine will return, but will he play with improved consistency following an up-and-down rookie year?
Douglas is with the Bills.
Nixon
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