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Brugler’s Seven-Round Mock Starts with Farley

The Athletic's Dane Brugler gave the Packers a cornerback, linebacker and receiver with his first three picks.
Bill Huber|
Brugler’s Seven-Round Mock Starts with Farley
Brugler’s Seven-Round Mock Starts with Farley

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Virginia Tech cornerback Caleb Farley, an elite talent who could fall in this month’s NFL Draft following back surgery, was the pick for the Green Bay Packers in a seven-round mock draft published by The Athletic’s Dane Brugler.

“A top-10 pick based on raw talent, Farley will likely see a slight slide on draft day due to his medical situation. How far? That’s anyone’s guess right now, but he could prove to be an unbelievable value in the late first round,” Brugler wrote.

According to Sports Info Solutions’ Rookie Handbook, Farley allowed a 25 percent completion rate in 2019.

The Packers enter the draft with needs at cornerback, offensive tackle, receiver, defensive line and linebacker. Brugler was able to address most of those needs early in his draft.

In the second round, he selected Missouri linebacker Nick Bolton. He was Green Bay’s first-round pick in a mock at NFL.com.

Bolton is a fascinating prospect. At 5-foot-11, he’s not big. With a 4.59 in the 40 and a 4.50 in the 20-yard shuttle, he’s not supremely athletic. What Bolton was at Missouri was supremely productive.

RELATED: SPORTS ILLUSTRATED TEAM PUBLISHERS MOCK DRAFT

In starting all 22 games the past two seasons, Bolton registered 202 tackles, three sacks, 16.5 tackles for losses, 15 passes defensed and two forced fumbles. He was first-team all-SEC both seasons and earned some All-American honors in 2020, when he finished second in the draft class in tackles per game.

In the third round, Brugler picked an explosive slot receiver with return experience. With the first of Green Bay’s fourth-round picks, he selected Tennessee guard Trey Smith, an outstanding player with a scary life story. During the offseason before his sophomore season with the Vols, he feared he might die when blood clots developed on his lungs.

“That was brutal, because it was like, ‘Dang, am I going to die? Just be real. Am I going to die? What’s going on?’” he said.

Brugler rounded out his draft with a defensive lineman in the fourth, a receiver and edge rusher in the fifth, an offensive tackle and safety in the sixth, and a cornerback with an impressive special-teams background in the seventh.

CLICK HERE for the full mock and all of Green Bay’s picks.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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