It’s been about 4 months since last entry — quite a bit has happened.

2025 NFL Draft — Green Bay, WI. It was a resounding success. Well over 600,000 people attended (officially), that passed through the turnstiles in the Draft Experience. Having attended all 3 days, I can assure you there were thousands more at the nearby bars and restaurants. With that, and to no one’s surpirse, Green Bay outdrank every other city that hosted an NFL Draft. Now to the important stuff.

It’s been well-covered, but for the first time since 2002, the Green Bay Packers selected a Wide Receiver in the 1^st round by picking Matthew Golden, a speedster out of Texas. Golden has the ability to essentially do everything on the football field. The odd thing with him, is while he blazed the combine with a 4.29 forty yard dash, he’s not a “blow off the top” kind of guy. He’s a technician…meaning he relies on footwork and getting to his spot to get his production. That alone should signal great things for him in Matt LaFleur’s offense. Golden has also shown he’s great with the ball in his hands in space. He can get maximum yardage in almost any situation – should be a good pick.

The other 7 selections were comprised of 2 offensive tackles (can never have enough), another wide receiver (while slower than Golden, seems to play much faster when watching tape), an Edge Rusher (can never have enough of those as well), a LB, DT, and Corner. With all rookies, it’s impossible to tell whether they’ll pan out, but stacking up on multiple picks on the same position tends to give you a much higher chance of one of those positions panning out. If you’ve been reading along, you know how important the offensive line is to a football team – they can mask many warts.

The 2nd Biggest News Since…

Pro-Bowl, and big-time corner, Jaire Alexander has left the team. Jaire was cut on June 9^th and the Packers will eat a substantial portion of his contract without getting anything in return for him, other than him holding a roster spot hostage. This was a tough decision as when he was healthy, he was the best cover corner in the entire NFL. He proved it in the playoff games he played, most notably in the 2020 NFC Championship Game when he followed WR Mike Evans beginning in the 2^nd half and forced 3 consecutive Tom Brady interceptions (Jaire had 2 of them). He’s a big time player, however the best ability is availability and Jaire was simply not available. In the past 4 seasons, Jaire has missed 34 regular season games, literally half of the games played in that timeline. It sucked to see him go, however in the words of the late, great Ted Thompson, “It’s always better to let a player go a year or two early than a year or two late.”

While We’re Here — Preseason Game 1 vs. Jets

There was not much to love (pun intended) about the game. It is tough to judge a team based on preseason as other than the players and coaches, no one knows what the responsibilities are for each player on each play – they may have been working on certain techniques that typically wouldn’t be called in those game situations. Then again, they got absolutely dismantled in almost all phases of the game. The Quarterbacks all looked “good,” the issue being the drops. They plagued and ultimately sealed Green Bay’s fate in the 2024 season, and they seemed to have picked up (or lack thereof) where they left off last year. Regardless of how the offensive line plays (which they looked OK for the most part) or how accurate the QB is, if you can’t catch the ball…

The good news is the rookies looked fairly good…mainly 1^st round pick, Matthew Golden, shined by snagging a slant route from Jordan Love and looked like a 5-year veteran in the process. Other than that, rookie offensive tackle, Anthony Belton, was mauling guys in the run game – a sight for sore eyes. The Packers definitely have a guy with some attitude that, if he turns it on, could be here for the long haul.

With all this, it’ll be interesting to see how these next 2 preseason games transpire and if they can gel to prepare for arguably the game of the year on September 7^th vs. the Detroit Lions. We’ll cover this in the next entry, but with the quick BYE week (Week 5), the Packers have 2 tough opponents (Detroit and Washington, both teams that played one another in the NFC title game a season ago)…should Green Bay beat both and find a way to 4-0 heading into the BYE, that could really set the tone for the season. If they’re 2-2, or 1-3…they’ll be playing catch up the entire season and likely be on the road for the entire playoffs…assuming they make it.