Packers Double-Up on Tight End Gambles

The Green Bay Packers' Day 2 tight ends, Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft, are coming off significant injuries and have plenty to prove.

Author:
Bill Huber
Updated:
Apr 29, 2023 1:39 AM EDT
Original:
Apr 29, 2023

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers’ most glaring need entering the 2023 NFL Draft was tight end. Fortunately for the Packers, a historically deep class of prospects beckoned.

General manager Brian Gutekunst grabbed two of them. In the second round at No. 42 overall, the Packers landed Oregon State tight end Luke Musgrave. In the third round at No. 78 overall, they struck again with South Dakota State’s Tucker Kraft.

“They’re both all-around tight ends that can kind of do everything,” Gutekunst said at the end of the third round on Friday night. “They’re not pigeonholed into only being able to be a receiving tight end or a blocking tight end. They can do it all.

“They both have very good size, very good speed, so I’m excited. I do think most of their best football is ahead of them for different reasons, but I think they will complement each other and they’ll be a good fit for our room that we already have.”

That sounds good on April 28. Will they be healthy and productive on Sept. 28? Dec. 28?

Musgrave seemingly was on course for his long-awaited breakout season but suffered a knee injury during the second game of the season. He didn’t play again until the Senior Bowl.

“It might have been a little soon,” he said, “but I was ready to get into football and I wanted to play football and I love football. That was the longest I’ve been away from the sport.”

Kraft, who was the best tight end in FCS in 2021 and was given “six-figure” NIL offers to take his considerable talents to the SEC, missed half the season with an ankle injury that required tightrope surgery. He was back on the field for the Jackrabbits’ run to the national championship, and is “100 percent ready” for rookie camp.

One significant injury over the course of a four-year college career isn’t the end of the world. Football’s a violent sport and things happen. Nonetheless, Gutekunst is putting the tight end eggs in a rickety basket.

Their pain, ultimately, was the Packers’ gain.

Luke Musgravve (USA Today Sports Images)

Musgrave had 11 catches during the first two games of the season. Had he closed the season with 50 or 60 receptions, he might have been viewed as a first-round prospect due to his combination of size and athleticism.

Kraft was coming off a season of 65 receptions for 780 yards and six touchdowns. Had he matched that success, he might have been a mid-second-rounder prospect, just like Dallas Goedert, the former South Dakota State standout who was selected by the Eagles at No. 49 overall in 2018.

“Not overly concerning to us,” Gutekunst said. “I think that’s a little bit probably why they were available where they were. We spent some time with both those guys and came away feeling really good about that particular part of it.”

However, the Packers are banking on two flawed prospects to fix their flawed tight end room, a position group undergoing an extreme makeover with Robert Tonyan off to Chicago and Marcedes Lewis unsigned.

Combined last year, Kraft (27) and Musgrave (11) caught 38 passes. Combined for their careers, they scored 11 touchdowns.

Musgrave never had sustained success in four seasons at Oregon State. For all his talent, he dropped too many passes, failed to win enough contested-catch opportunities and only scored two touchdowns. Kraft’s success came against a bunch of defenders who’ll never get a sniff of the NFL.

“I really like this group now,” Gutekunst said of a group headed by 2020 third-round pick Josiah Deguara (39 catches in three seasons) and 2020 sixth-round pick Tyler Davis (eight catches in three seasons).

“I think these guys can do everything you ask a tight end in the National Football League to do,” he added. “Again, they’re young. They’ve got a lot to prove. But I like both the skill-sets and I like both their work ethics.”

Musgrave and Kraft were part of a historic binge of nine tight ends selected in the first three rounds. Musgrave was the fourth off the board and Kraft was the seventh. They’re both full-grown tight ends with above-average athleticism, with Musgrave at 6-foot-5 7/8 and 253 pounds with 4.61 speed and Kraft at 6-foot-4 3/4 and 254 pounds with 4.62 speed.

“The tight end class this year is one of the deepest we’ve seen in a while,” Gutekunst said. “You never know how that’s going to work out (or) when the runs are going to happen. But it just worked out because of the depth of that class that were able to take two, which was a little unusual, but I think we came into the whole weekend wanting to be able to do that.”