Welcome (and Welcome Back) to Packers’ 13 Draft Picks

The Green Bay Packers hosted 30 players on predraft visits. Six of them wound up with Green Bay.

Author:
Bill Huber
Publish date:
May 1, 2023 8:59 AM EDT

In this story:

GREEN BAY, Wis. – During Ted Thompson’s long and successful run as Green Bay Packers general manager, the 30 allotted predraft visits often were used as nothing more than recruiting potential undrafted free agents.

Not anymore.

Of the Packers’ 13 draft picks in the 2023 NFL Draft, four had predraft visits: fifth-round quarterback Sean Clifford, fifth-round receiver Dontayvion Wicks, sixth-round defensive tackle Karl Brooks and seventh-round running back Lew Nichols III. So, too, did a pair of undrafted free agents: offensive tackle Kadeem Telfort and tight end Camren McDonald.

That’s six out of 30 – or 20 percent.

“It's really case by case,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said after the draft. “Maybe it could be a medical thing. It could be just maybe, ‘Hey, we want to see how he fits in with our coaching staff and how he might fit into the room, so there might be some character things that we really want to work through in a one-on-one basis. So, there's a lot of different reasons. There's times where answering one of two questions on certain things can help you make a decision.”

Last year, three of the team’s first five picks, first-round defensive Devonte Wyatt, second-round receiver Christian Watson and fourth-round receiver Romeo Doubs, visited. This year, none of the five players selected in the first four rounds visited.

“With a lot of guys,” Gutekunst said, “if we kind of get to a certain point where we feel really, really good and everything's lining up and there's not a lot of questions there, we don't really feel the need to bring them in if we've had exposures to them at all-star games, the Combine. Maybe just everything added up through the fall for our guys and there were really no discrepancies.”

In the case of Clifford, the visit was the clincher.

“Obviously, he started a lot of games in the Big Ten, has a lot of experience, really good athlete, liked his arm talent,” Gutekunst said. “We brought him in for a pre-draft visit and just really liked the makeup of the person.”

The visits also get the coaches involved. The coaches didn’t join Gutekunst and the scouts at the Combine. While the coaches did talk to prospects via Zoom, there’s nothing quite like face-to-face interaction over the course of several hours.

“Sean is a guy that is really intelligent,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “He’s played a lot of games. He’s got some athleticism, he’s a natural thrower. All the things that we look for in quarterbacks, he possesses. We had him up here on a visit and went through the meetings with him and were impressed by his football acumen and his overall intelligence.”

By the time the draft started, Clifford had met with more than one-third of the teams. Green Bay was among those visits that left an impression.

“I just felt like the coaching staff, the people there, the town, it just fit me really well and I’m really happy to be a Green Bay Packer,” he said during his introductory Zoom call. “I think just all around it just felt like a really good fit and, when you have that kind of conversation, you definitely have hopes. I was really excited to see that name pop up on the phone.”

Two of the visits, the seventh-rounder Nichols and the undrafted Telfort, were not invited to the Scouting Combine. Those visits were used for medical checks as well as getting to know the prospects.

“That was definitely intriguing,” Nichols said. “Once I got there, they showed me a lot of love just kind of got the vibe for their culture and everything they had going on. Man, I’m just excited and blessed and humbled and eager to get out there and compete.”