TAKING STOCK: 2022 GREEN BAY PACKERS

BY ADAM GREENE

As Mrs. Potts sang in whatever version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast you prefer, it was a tale as old as time. Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers had enjoyed a stellar season, landed home field advantage in the NFC playoffs and, with the path to the Super Bowl laid out before them, promptly crapped the bed.

Rodgers, as he has for much of his career, stood on the Packers’ sideline, his puffy coat around his unvaccinated but “immunized” shoulders, watched helplessly as another team’s quarterback, more often than not in a San Francisco 49ers jersey, take his team down the field for the gamewinning score. Jimmy Garoppolo has literally done it twice.

GREEN BAY PACKERS

2021-22 Record: 12-5, first place NFC North, No. 1 Seed in the NFC

Playoffs: Lost 13-10 to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Divisional Round

NOW WHAT?

A new season offers Rodgers and the Packers a fresh opportunity to faceplant in the playoffs. This time, they’ll do it as a significantly less talented team after trading away one of the top three wide receivers in the NFL, Devante Adams. Green Bay’s wide receiver depth chart now looks like Randall Cobb, Amari Rodgers and Allan Lazard. Of those, Cobb is the only one to ever record a 1,000 yard season and that was back in 2014. Amari Rodgers caught all of four passes last season.

In exchange for Adams, Green Bay got the Las Vegas Raiders first and second round picks in the upcoming draft.

On the bright side, Rodgers and the Pack have buried the Ivermectin covered hatchet and agreed to a long term contract that should wrap up the future first ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer’s career. That puts back up and former first round pick Jordan Love on the trading block, but that is a buyer’s market and they’re probably stuck with him unless he shows something fantastic in the preseason. There were just far too many proven quarterbacks available this offseason.

FREE AGENCY

In addition to Adams, Green Bay let Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Equanimeous St. Brown both walk as free agents. They cut Za’Darius Smith, who was injured all last season, but had back to hack double digit sack seasons for the team in 2019-2020. No Packer hit 10 sacks last season with Smith out. 

Green Bay has been relatively quiet in free agency, content to roll into the draft with an extra first and second rounder now to see what happens.

DRAFT

With four picks in the first two rounds, the Packers should add plenty of young starters so it would be nothing short of hilarious if they drafted a quarterback again. I’m going to believe in my heart they won’t and will instead, with the No. 22 overall pick they got for Adams, replace him with Drake London, wide receiver out of USC. In my original, now obliterated, mock draft I had them taking Matt Corral at No. 28, thinking they would trade Rodgers for a huge haul of picks. Now, that’s obviously not going to happen.

Instead, we’re going with a corner like Rodger McCreary out of Auburn or an offensive lineman like Daniel Faalele from Minnesota. At 53 overall in the second round, let’s give them an edge rusher to replace Smith like Myjai Sanders from Cincinnati. At 59, they should look at an interior defensive lineman like DeMarvin Leal from Texas A&M.

At 92 overall in the third, let’s go with Jeremy Ruckert, the 6-5, 250 pound tight end from Ohio State

NFC NORTH

The NFC North will be a slightly different animal in 2022 as both the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears have decided to hire (what appear to be) real NFL coaches to run their teams. Still, there’s a gap here between the Bears, Vikings and Detroit Lions and the Packers. This will be a weaker Packers team across the board so a home field advantage is probably out of the question, though another North title is likely a given. That just means Rodgers will watch another QB win in the playoffs on a different field than he’s used to come January.

Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan.

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