Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted social
Speaker 1: distancing Style from Packers dot Com. Mike Spoffer, joined as
Speaker 1: always by my trusted colleague Wes Hodkowits coming to you
Speaker 1: from our humble abodes and West. Today, we're going to
Speaker 1: move on with our draft preview series regarding the Packers roster.
Speaker 1: Worth things stand. We're gonna look at the trenches. We're
Speaker 1: gonna call it the day in the trenches, the offensive
Speaker 1: and defensive lines. And you know, you look at this
Speaker 1: Packers offensive line if the season started tomorrow, you know
Speaker 1: who you're starting five is. But when it comes to
Speaker 1: maybe some planning for the future, especially at the offensive
Speaker 1: tackle position, the Packers are definitely looking at some things
Speaker 1: in this draft. Yeah. And if you go back, Mike,
Speaker 1: all these drafts, offensive line, defensive line. If there's anything
Speaker 1: that they're almost a certainty of, it's the Packers will
Speaker 1: draft at least one player from both of those positions.
Speaker 1: Defensive line. They've done it in twenty four, twenty five
Speaker 1: consecutive drafts. Now. But your question is valid offensive line.
Speaker 1: Offensive tackle is going to be an issue, an interesting
Speaker 1: thing for the Packers to potentially explore because Brian Bulag
Speaker 1: has gone. Rick Wagner is here, but as we saw
Speaker 1: last year when Blaga went down, then you had to
Speaker 1: go get Jared Vlder to come in and help out
Speaker 1: at right tackle, who could potentially be that swing tackle
Speaker 1: candidate for them this year. That is gonna be the
Speaker 1: thing that I'm with my eye on. Alex light is back. Certainly,
Speaker 1: you have guys like you know, even Elaine Taylor who's
Speaker 1: still on the roster right now. He could potentially help
Speaker 1: out there as well. But I think they want to
Speaker 1: probably get a guy in the system. With David bak
Speaker 1: T now nine years old, Rick Wagner also thirty, you
Speaker 1: want to get a young guy to work with them
Speaker 1: and really get a chance to develop a much like
Speaker 1: Bolaga did with box tr seven years ago. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: look at the offensive tackle situation and Rick Wagner he
Speaker 1: entered the league three years after Brian Bulaga, but he's
Speaker 1: an actually the same age as Bolaga. Then you also
Speaker 1: have David Bactieri, he's heading into the final year of
Speaker 1: his contract. As far as the other options at offensive tackle,
Speaker 1: Billy Turner maybe could play there. You mentioned Lane Taylor
Speaker 1: maybe could play there in a pinch. You have Alex
Speaker 1: Light with a little bit of experience. Yosh Naiman is
Speaker 1: back from an injury. He'll be another guy to compete
Speaker 1: for a backup role on this roster. But in terms
Speaker 1: of planning for the future, yeah, you'd really like to
Speaker 1: get one of the top offensive tackles if you can
Speaker 1: in this draft. Obviously, a lot of that depends on
Speaker 1: how things fall. With the Packers sitting at thirty in
Speaker 1: the first round, sixty two in the second round, it's
Speaker 1: going to be hard to find somebody after that. I
Speaker 1: mean the David Baktrs of the world. Finding a franchise
Speaker 1: offensive tackle and a left tackle at that in the
Speaker 1: fourth round. That that doesn't happen every day. It It
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, you know, even maybe more than once in
Speaker 1: about a decade or two. Packers very fortunate there. They've
Speaker 1: made the most of everything with box Tr. I think
Speaker 1: they'd like to keep him in Green Bay even beyond
Speaker 1: this final year of his contract. But it's about planning
Speaker 1: for the future. With Rick Wagner the age that he is,
Speaker 1: and as you said, having a potential swing guy who
Speaker 1: could back up at both spots and develop behind a
Speaker 1: couple of established pros. Yeah, and this is something that
Speaker 1: you and I discussed on our last show. With the
Speaker 1: receiver position. You've got Devin Funchius in the system. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a young man that allows you to have flexibility.
Speaker 1: You don't have to necessarily go out and use a
Speaker 1: high pick on receiver. You can if you want to,
Speaker 1: but you're not pressing for need the same thing. That's
Speaker 1: what happened with Rick Wagner, and I think actually Wagner
Speaker 1: is even more important now when you look at what
Speaker 1: could be a really truncated offseason program. We don't know
Speaker 1: what will happen with the training camp. You don't want
Speaker 1: to throw a rookie out there right away off the bat.
Speaker 1: You want a guy like Wagner that started a hundred
Speaker 1: games in the NFL to this point and is going
Speaker 1: to be able to help out. I have to deviate
Speaker 1: from this for a second, though, Mike and bring up
Speaker 1: Lane Taylor again, because if you go back back to January,
Speaker 1: back to February, West had Kowitz and I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to pat my self on the back here, but I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to reiterate Lane Taylor is a good football
Speaker 1: player here, folks, West Hodco has kept saying Lane Taylor
Speaker 1: is not going to get cut if you know anything
Speaker 1: about his contract, if you know any the way that
Speaker 1: what he's gone through, the way they structured that, it
Speaker 1: wasn't like he was gonna be a big cap casualty.
Speaker 1: It reminded me a lot of what happened with Brian
Speaker 1: Bolaga last year. He was making good money, absolutely, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't making the most at his position. So by
Speaker 1: having Taylor back, by resigning Lucas Patrick extending him, you
Speaker 1: have Billy Turner coming back. Ellen Jenkins, I think is
Speaker 1: gonna be a ten year pro in this league. For
Speaker 1: as many questions as the Packers have to answer as
Speaker 1: far as who that swing tackle is going to be,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of options on that interior offensive
Speaker 1: line in one of the deepest into your offensive lines
Speaker 1: that I can recall in my time covering this team. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Packers are definitely in good shape depthwise on the interior.
Speaker 1: You do have Corey Linsley at center going into the
Speaker 1: final year of his contract. He's another one of those veterans.
Speaker 1: The Packers will be making a decision on as far
Speaker 1: as a contract extension here sometime within the next twelve months.
Speaker 1: But but looking at offensive tackle, and I'll glance at
Speaker 1: my notes here for a second with regard to some
Speaker 1: of the prospects that are out there, there's kind of
Speaker 1: a consensus on the top four or five offensive tackles
Speaker 1: in this draft, but there certainly isn't a guarantee that
Speaker 1: any of those four or five guys is going to
Speaker 1: be there for the Packers at thirty if that's where
Speaker 1: they're targeting. And I'm talking about guys like Tristan Worf's
Speaker 1: from Iowa, Jedrick Wills from Alabama, Andrew Thomas from Georgia,
Speaker 1: Beckton from Louisville, and Josh Jones from Houston. Now, Josh
Speaker 1: Jones is one of the one guy who's maybe outside
Speaker 1: of you know, those top four that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of varying opinions as to where he might fall in
Speaker 1: this draft. But then other guys, and these would be
Speaker 1: guys maybe that could be there at sixty two at
Speaker 1: the end of the second round if the Packers are
Speaker 1: inclined to go that way. Austin Jackson from ust maybe
Speaker 1: Ezra Cleveland from Boise State, Isaiah Wilson from Georgia. He's
Speaker 1: the other tackle on the opposite side from Andrew Thomas,
Speaker 1: who is the higher rated tackle from Georgia, and then
Speaker 1: Prince Tega Winoga, Winoga, if I'm saying that correctly from Auburn,
Speaker 1: another offensive tackle being talked about in that that second
Speaker 1: round range. So there are going to be some options
Speaker 1: there for the Packers. But again, when you're at thirty,
Speaker 1: when you're at sixty two, who's going to be there
Speaker 1: and can you get the right value for the pick
Speaker 1: to address those future concerns that we're talking about. One
Speaker 1: thing I love about when we do the draft series,
Speaker 1: spot is always the one that has to say all
Speaker 1: the prospects names. I always get to come in afterwards
Speaker 1: after you actually have gone through it and pained yourself
Speaker 1: to make sure you get all these pronunciations correct. Uh,
Speaker 1: Josh Jones and the guy I've had my eye on
Speaker 1: this entire process. I just think that as you've seen
Speaker 1: that position and where he could potentially fit, he's the
Speaker 1: only senior in those top picks. A lot of experience
Speaker 1: there at Houston, certainly had a lot of success at
Speaker 1: the college level, but it seems like his project keep
Speaker 1: it can be anywhere from fifteen to thirty to maybe
Speaker 1: second round. You don't really know where he's going to fall,
Speaker 1: but a lot of ability, there a lot of talent.
Speaker 1: I think he's a guy to have my eye on.
Speaker 1: As far as second round, Austin Jackson is probably the
Speaker 1: one if he would be there that late, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And Ezra Cleveland, I mean, Cleveland's a tall dude. If
Speaker 1: if he can get his pad level right, I think
Speaker 1: he can be a really big success at this level too.
Speaker 1: It's not the deepest group ever, and there's some question
Speaker 1: in terms of where these guys are gonna play at
Speaker 1: the next level, but there are a lot of options
Speaker 1: and body types for Brian Goodicoins to take a look at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a couple other notes. Austin Jackson from USC He's
Speaker 1: the one whose grandfather played for the Packers. I believe
Speaker 1: it was back in the nineteen seventies, and that you
Speaker 1: mentioned Ezra Cleveland from Boise State. I kind of look
Speaker 1: at him a lot like Josh Jones, just in the
Speaker 1: sense of there's talk of him being anywhere from maybe
Speaker 1: being picked twentieth in the first round to anywhere all
Speaker 1: the way down through the second round. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of varying opinions as to as to where he might go.
Speaker 1: You see some reports that some team wants to trade
Speaker 1: up for him in the first round, and then others
Speaker 1: are saying, well, you know, he'll be there in the
Speaker 1: second round, so who knows. I mean, you know, we're
Speaker 1: still six days away at this point from this first
Speaker 1: round kicking off, and they're they're gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of trades maschinations, teams shifting around trying to find the
Speaker 1: right value based on how they have guys rated on
Speaker 1: their board. And uh, and we'll just have to see
Speaker 1: exactly where Brian Goudacum's test. Some of these guys rated
Speaker 1: his decisions are gonna tell us that absolutely And I
Speaker 1: want to jump in here and mentioned this is I
Speaker 1: love these type of prospects, by the way, the guys
Speaker 1: that people don't know if they're gonna go twenty or
Speaker 1: sixty because a lot of times the guys that end
Speaker 1: up falling into the second round, they're the ones that
Speaker 1: everybody thought were a sure friar first round pick and
Speaker 1: then suddenly they're there. What's wrong with them? But then
Speaker 1: you look at you know, a guy like Darnell Savage
Speaker 1: last year, a lot of people didn't think he was
Speaker 1: a first round pick right away he ends up being
Speaker 1: the first defensive back on off the board. You know
Speaker 1: how many times I bring up late in vander esh
Speaker 1: a guy that at the combine a number of years
Speaker 1: ago was seen as a second or third rounder. He
Speaker 1: works his way into the first round. Those guys that
Speaker 1: sometimes I have those wide projections and up going on
Speaker 1: the earlier side of that, because as much as there's
Speaker 1: questions out there about them, there's a lot of intrigue
Speaker 1: as well, as you know from NFL scouts. So for
Speaker 1: that reason, whether it's Josh Jones or whether it's Cleveland,
Speaker 1: some of these guys, I like those question marks because
Speaker 1: I think that shows their upside and their stealing and
Speaker 1: how that could potentially impact an NFL roster. Yeah, absolutely well,
Speaker 1: shifting gears here to the defensive line. The way I
Speaker 1: put this in the written series that is that I've
Speaker 1: been posting on the site on a daily basis looking
Speaker 1: at the Packers roster position by position. The perfect world
Speaker 1: scenario for the Green Bay Packers is to be able
Speaker 1: to extend Kenny Clark and find the next Kenny Clark.
Speaker 1: Now that's absolutely you know, having your cake and eating
Speaker 1: it too. So to speak, but Brian Goudakunst has made
Speaker 1: no bones about the fact that he wants Kenny Clark
Speaker 1: in a Packer uniform long term. He's now entering the
Speaker 1: fifth year option from his rookie contract as a first
Speaker 1: round pick in the Packers want to work out a deal.
Speaker 1: They want to extend Kenny Clark, and they did extend
Speaker 1: Dean Lowry last year. But after that, you have Tyler Lancaster,
Speaker 1: you have Montrevius Adams, and you have keys Lee Kiki,
Speaker 1: a sixth round draft pick from a year ago. All
Speaker 1: of those guys still, you know, you hope that they're
Speaker 1: still developing and and haven't necessarily reached their peak yet.
Speaker 1: But this is a position I think if the right
Speaker 1: guy is there, whether you're talking at thirty or at
Speaker 1: sixty two, I don't see Brian Goudacum is hesitating whatsoever
Speaker 1: to make that pick and add to that defensive line
Speaker 1: and hope that that's the next Kenny Clark, if that
Speaker 1: guy is there for him. There's been a lot of
Speaker 1: interviews and types of like things I've done leading up
Speaker 1: to the draft here of people asking, you know, what
Speaker 1: are the Packers going to do with number thirty Are
Speaker 1: they gonna move up, are they gonna move back? Are
Speaker 1: they going to go with receiver finally for the first
Speaker 1: time in eighteen years. You don't know, But you can
Speaker 1: go off of history and you can go off percentages.
Speaker 1: If you were asking me, Okay, West, you gotta pick
Speaker 1: a spot here, you have to pick a player. You
Speaker 1: basically look at the past twenty years offensive line, defensive line,
Speaker 1: that's more often or not been the way the Packers
Speaker 1: have gone. And for that very reason, I always take
Speaker 1: scouting those players, reading about those players very seriously because
Speaker 1: as it goes back to that old adage that Ted
Speaker 1: Thompson always used to say, you're familiar with him, Mike,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we bring it up on the show every year.
Speaker 1: There's only so many of those guys on this planet,
Speaker 1: and there's even fewer of them that can actually run, jump,
Speaker 1: all those type of things that you look for in
Speaker 1: a professional football player, and you put a premium on
Speaker 1: that position. You look at where the Packers stand right now.
Speaker 1: Kenny Clark, I think undoubtedly is going to go down
Speaker 1: is probably one of the top ten picks that Ted
Speaker 1: Thompson had because he found him at the end of
Speaker 1: the first round. And this is a guy that is now,
Speaker 1: at twenty four years old, one of the best at
Speaker 1: his position in the league. Dean Lowry signed the extension
Speaker 1: last year. I'm sure if you ask Dean, he probably
Speaker 1: wanted to make more of an impact than he was
Speaker 1: able to. But still a very consistent, durable player for them.
Speaker 1: Has not missed a game yet due to injury. And
Speaker 1: those are your two building blocks are on the defensive line.
Speaker 1: Who's going to be that third person though, because as
Speaker 1: much as we have talked about all the league's moving
Speaker 1: towards the passing league, we're seeing more two down lineman
Speaker 1: looks Mike. I didn't run the actual percentages, but I
Speaker 1: would I would have a hard time believing that base
Speaker 1: defense has been down as much as I think everybody
Speaker 1: says it is. Packers ran a lot of it last year,
Speaker 1: whether it was a different type of variation, but they've
Speaker 1: had a lot of three defensive linement on the field
Speaker 1: at the same time. So you're looking at Montrevia Saidams,
Speaker 1: You're looking at Kiki, You're looking at Tyler Lancaster. You
Speaker 1: want to see those guys step up, but a lot
Speaker 1: of times the best way to get the most out
Speaker 1: of that room is to find a real nice athlete,
Speaker 1: like they did with Kenny Clark in two thousand and sixteen,
Speaker 1: throw them in there and let those guys, you know,
Speaker 1: compete for that playing time. Well, that that's what I
Speaker 1: think dictates what you do from a defensive perspective with
Speaker 1: regard to your packages. Is what type of defensive lineman
Speaker 1: do you have? And if the Packers, I mean Kenny
Speaker 1: Clark is he's that every down, all around lineman. He
Speaker 1: can he can stop the run, and he can take
Speaker 1: on double team, he can get after the quarterback, he
Speaker 1: can do all of those things. Well you add a
Speaker 1: second guy who's just like that. I don't care whether
Speaker 1: you call it nickel or bass or sub package, whatever
Speaker 1: you wanna call it. If you have two guys like
Speaker 1: that playing almost every down on the defensive line, your
Speaker 1: defensive coordinator has all kinds of flexibility with how he
Speaker 1: wants to package everybody else at the linebacker level and
Speaker 1: at the secondary level. So that's the kind of and
Speaker 1: and that's how the San Francisco forty Niners, frankly the
Speaker 1: defending NFC champions, that's how they built their defense. They
Speaker 1: built their defense by spending first round picks or trading
Speaker 1: or signing former first round picks to build that defensive line.
Speaker 1: Now they ended up trading I believe it was DeForrest
Speaker 1: Buckner this uh this offseason. So there's talk that the
Speaker 1: forty Niners at number thirty one, picking right after the Packers,
Speaker 1: might be in the market for another defensive lineman as
Speaker 1: well because of their trade of of Bucker. They want
Speaker 1: to try to keep that same style, that same core
Speaker 1: of defense in terms of type of players to there
Speaker 1: to make another run out of Super Bowl. So this
Speaker 1: is gonna be really interesting to me how this shakes
Speaker 1: out at the at the end of the first round,
Speaker 1: because and we all know, the Packers didn't stop to
Speaker 1: run well enough against San Francisco in January, and that's
Speaker 1: why the forty Niners went to the Super Bowl. And
Speaker 1: let's be honest, Mike, I'm gonna flash forward to a
Speaker 1: year from right at this moment, I fully expect that
Speaker 1: David Batr, Kenny Clark, both of those guys are gonna
Speaker 1: be the long term plans for the Packers. I see
Speaker 1: them being in for the next four or five years.
Speaker 1: But in Clark's specific spot, you what you want to
Speaker 1: do is you want to be able to build that up. Now,
Speaker 1: whether it takes a first round pick or not, you
Speaker 1: don't know, but you want to be able to use
Speaker 1: him in different ways so he doesn't have to do everything,
Speaker 1: because as great as Kenny Clark is, you can't always
Speaker 1: expect him to play of the defensive snaps every single year,
Speaker 1: especially as he gets older. You want to be smarter
Speaker 1: with him. You want to take him out of certain
Speaker 1: run packages. You want to be able to take him
Speaker 1: out of certain pass packages. You want to maximize his
Speaker 1: value and make sure that that guy is going to
Speaker 1: give you a percent physically you know you're gonna get
Speaker 1: it mentally, but being able to give everything he has
Speaker 1: when he's on the field, that's why. And and you
Speaker 1: know we'll get into some prospects here, but these last
Speaker 1: few years, you know, you've had a guy or two
Speaker 1: that you've mentioned, the one I always like to use
Speaker 1: as Elvin Kamara. You were on that train before anybody else,
Speaker 1: and I think Ross Blacklock is one of those guys.
Speaker 1: This year. I didn't know Ross Blacklock until you brought
Speaker 1: up his name at the NFL Scouting combine. And I've
Speaker 1: done a lot of research on the young man. He
Speaker 1: has a different body type than Clark. He's about the
Speaker 1: same height, but he's a little smaller about pounds smaller.
Speaker 1: But those two ninety pound defensive tackles, now, Mike, they're
Speaker 1: infiltrating the league and they're making big impacts. That's a
Speaker 1: guy that could potentially if the Packers would go that direction,
Speaker 1: maybe take off some of those pass rushing duties from
Speaker 1: Clark or being able to at least use them in
Speaker 1: different ways to be able to give you more of
Speaker 1: a two headed approach in the trenches. Yeah, and just
Speaker 1: to to run down some names as far as guys
Speaker 1: that are being talked about in that that late first
Speaker 1: round or into the second round. On the defensive line.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Blacklock from TCU. He's getting a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of publicity in terms of people wondering how
Speaker 1: much the Packers are interested. Um Neville Gallimore from Oklahoma
Speaker 1: would be another one. Marlon Davidson from Auburn. He was
Speaker 1: another guy really intrigued me at the combine from a
Speaker 1: personality standpoint. Really interesting guy and and just like I
Speaker 1: was talking about with Georgia with the offensive tackles, Davidson
Speaker 1: is sort of the second guy from Auburn. Because Derek Brown,
Speaker 1: the top defensive lineman from Auburn, he's being talked about
Speaker 1: as a possible top five, top ten pick. But then
Speaker 1: Davidson is that is that second guy from that same
Speaker 1: defensive line unit. Uh justin Mattabek if I'm saying that correctly,
Speaker 1: from Texas A and M. And then also ray Kwon
Speaker 1: Davis another one from Alabama. Um, who's been talked about
Speaker 1: in that late first round or or second round, you know,
Speaker 1: day two type of mix. So again, you just don't
Speaker 1: always know where these guys are gonna go. And and
Speaker 1: you know, with a lot of these prospects, I mean,
Speaker 1: as we talk about all the time was beauties in
Speaker 1: the eye of the beholder. There are some teams who
Speaker 1: will have certain guys rated as theft or twentie best
Speaker 1: player in the entire draft on their board, that same
Speaker 1: guy best guy on another team's board. So um, and
Speaker 1: they you know, they guard those opinions as as well
Speaker 1: as they can leading up to when the soul starts
Speaker 1: next Thursday night. Yeah, just a touch on you know. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Gallamore has such an interesting story Canadian and a guy
Speaker 1: that went to a prep school I think his parents
Speaker 1: are paying sixteen thousand dollars a year or something like
Speaker 1: that for him to go. And you know Canada, you know,
Speaker 1: the Great North is not known for a lot of
Speaker 1: NFL prospects. Uh. And here was a guy that put
Speaker 1: in everything he had to try getting a college scholarship.
Speaker 1: He did that at Oklahoma, was very productive there. And
Speaker 1: then also as you mentioned, made Bouki, Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: pronounce his name. He played last year or two years
Speaker 1: ago with Kingsley Kiki, very similar type of skill sets.
Speaker 1: He really came on as a senior. I think he
Speaker 1: had eleven sacks or something like that. Um made book keep.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be able to pronounce that. That That means
Speaker 1: the Packers are gonna draft him, and I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to learn how to pronounce that. But it's those type
Speaker 1: of guys that I think whether the Packers go first,
Speaker 1: second round, if they want to go high with the
Speaker 1: defensive linemen again, much like with the offensive line, a
Speaker 1: lot of different guys that could really be a complimentary
Speaker 1: piece and potentially help them out depending on what they're
Speaker 1: looking for. Yeah, and just getting back to Blacklock for
Speaker 1: a second, to he's the one who's uh father has
Speaker 1: been the coach of the Harlem Globe Trotters. So I
Speaker 1: I just his his story to me is is is
Speaker 1: fascinating and like I said, with Davidson from Auburn Blacklock
Speaker 1: from a personality standpoint, just a really interesting guy to
Speaker 1: listen to him talk at the combine and and tell
Speaker 1: his story. Um, there are definitely some some personalities in
Speaker 1: this defensive line group and we'll see if if ultimately
Speaker 1: one of them falls to the Packers at a place
Speaker 1: that Brian Goudaquins feels there's good value to take one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even if they don't take one of the first
Speaker 1: three days, as I mentioned earlier, I think it goes
Speaker 1: back to or ninety six somewhere around there was the
Speaker 1: last time the Packers have not drafted a defensive lineman.
Speaker 1: So death taxes and defensive lineman you can count on
Speaker 1: them every year for the Green Bay Packers. Yeah. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: with that we will sign off on this edition of
Speaker 1: Packers Unscripted. Will continue our position by position preview series
Speaker 1: next week when we return. For now, thank you for watching, everybody,
Speaker 1: enjoy your weekend, Take care and stay safe.