Packers Focus on Trenches in ESPN’s Two-Round NFL Mock Draft

ESPN.com draft insider Matt Miller picked an offensive tackle and a defensive end in his two-round mock draft.

Oregon Ducks offensive tackle Josh Conerly Jr. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

GREEN BAY, Wis. – To win in the NFL, teams must protect the quarterback on offense and rush the quarterback on defense. That reality was the focus of Matt Miller’s new two-round mock draft for ESPN.

In the first round, Oregon’s Josh Conerly was the pick.

Conerly was the Ducks’ two-year starter at left tackle. He allowed one sack and 17 pressures in 2023 and one sack and nine pressures in 2024, according to Pro Football Focus. Impressively, he won his individual matchups against Penn State’s Abdul Carter and Ohio State’s Jack Sawyer.

“I feel like it wasn’t just those specific performances,” Conerly told Oregon Love at the Senior Bowl. “I feel like it was the whole season and the exponential growth that I made throughout the year that allowed me to make this decision.”

Conerly was a running back through his freshman year of high school. Then, when he was about 6-foot-1 and 240 pounds, he was moved to the offensive line.

“I kind of knew that’s what I had to do,” Conerly said. “We lost our whole line.”

It didn’t take long for scholarship offers to start pouring in.

“He’s really, really violent,” his high school coach said. “I’ve coached some cats that were good football players, but he can really play. He has good hand placement, and he’s violent when he gets to you. “He transforms into a whole different person. He transforms into a destroyer. He’s going to intimidate you, talk trash to you, be borderline nasty with it.”

At the Senior Bowl, he measured 6-foot-4 1/8 and 313 pounds with 34-inch arms.

“Despite still adding play power to his frame in 2024, he had his best season yet,” Miller wrote.

As Miller noted, Packers left tackle Rasheed Walker will be a free agent after the upcoming season.

Conerly is Daniel Jeremiah’s 38th-ranked prospect at NFL.com. Like with many young linemen, he’ll need to get stronger and refine his technique.

“Conerly isn’t an elite athlete, but he has the tools to develop into a solid starter in time,” he wrote.

Last year, the Packers used a second-round pick on Texas A&M linebacker Edgerrin Cooper. In this mock, Miller went to Texas A&M to grab defensive end Nic Scourton.

“Green Bay loves to pick players with top-level traits from Power 4 schools,” Miller wrote. “And the 6-foot-4, 285-pound Scourton has 15 sacks over the past two seasons and is extremely young; he doesn't turn 21 until August.”

Scourton started his career at Purdue. He led the Big Ten with 10 sacks in 2023. In his lone season at Texas A&M, he had five sacks. Combined for those two seasons, he had 15 sacks, 29 tackles for losses and two forced fumbles.

Of 149 edge defenders in the draft class with at least 200 pass-rushing opportunities, Scourton finished 16th in pass-rush win rate, according to PFF.

“The best way to play football is to stop the run,” he said. “If we go get a TFL on first down and they get a three-yard gain on second down, you know they’re going to pass the ball. That’s what you want, especially in games like that. With a good offensive line vs. a good defensive line, that’s what people come to see.”

In the mock, the Bears used their first-round pick on an offensive tackle while the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions strengthened their defensive lines.

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