Paul Bretl | 4/17/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The 2025 NFL draft is on the horizon, and with that, it’s time for me to once again put together my short list of potential first-round selections for the Packers.
This will be Year 3 of me going through this exercise. In 2023, Lukas Van Ness was on my shortlist, but last year Jordan Morgan was not. He fell off during the age portion of the exercise at 22 years old. Otherwise, he would have made it.
My ultimate goal is to end up with a list of just three to five prospects who the Packers are likely to target with the 23rd pick this year.
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My process for creating this shortlist begins with using a consensus big board to gather all of the prospects who could be available in that range where the Packers are picking. Then, I whittle the list down using previous draft tendencies and thresholds that GM Brian Gutekunst has often adhered to.
Since it is my goal to make this list as small as possible, I strongly adhere to the thresholds and tendencies that are utilized in this exercise. So there are times when a favorite prospect of many has been left off the final list.
Now, the caveat here is that these guidelines and metrics that I am using, while established within the Packers’ draft tendencies under Gutekunst, are not the be-all-end-all by any means either. For example, in the 2022 NFL draft, in the first round, the Packers drafted 24-year-old Devonte Wyatt, whose age was an outlier, and then linebacker Quay Walker, who plays a non-premium position.
This exercise is far from perfect, but with there being a fairly large sample size of first-round picks made by Gutekunst during his GM tenure, through this process, we can make an educated guess when it comes to who truly might be on the Packers’ radar.
The initial list
To begin, I am using the 2025 consensus big board from the NFL mock draft database, which has compiled 164 big boards during this pre-draft process to create these rankings.
To begin shrinking the list–because that’s the goal–I’m not going to include the prospects who are in the consensus top 10, with the thought being that they are not going to be on the board when the Packers are picking. So this list will start with the prospects ranked 11 through 35, to make sure we don’t miss out on anyone due to variations in how the Packers evaluate this class.
Now, one more thing, right off the bat, I am not going to include several positions. Quarterback, running back, safety, and linebacker are not Round 1 needs for the Packers given their current roster outlook, while the interior offensive line is not a position we’ve seen them add to in the first round traditionally. I know Morgan ended up at guard, but he was a tackle in college, and from the sounds of it, will be competing there this summer.
So here is that initial list of prospects:
WR Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona
CB Will Johnson, Michigan
OT Kelvin Banks, Texas
CB Jahdae Barron, Texas
DE Mykel Williams, Georgia
DE Shemar Stewart, Texas A&M
DE Mike Green, Marshall
WR Matthew Golden, Texas
OT Josh Simmons, Ohio State
IDL Kenneth Grant, Michigan
IDL Derrick Harmon, Oregon
IDL Walter Nolen, Ole Miss
DE James Pearce, Tennessee
DE Donovan Ezeiruaku, Boston College
WR Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State
OT Josh Conerly, Oregon
WR Luther Burden, Missouri
CB Maxwell Hairston, Kentucky
Relative Athletic Scores
I’ve gone into great detail about the strong connection between RAS and the Packers’ selections under Gutekunst. In short, of Gutekunst’s 64 draft picks, 48 have registered a RAS of 8.0 or higher, with 28 of those prospects scoring above 9.0.
In regards to the first round specifically, seven of Gutekunt’s nine picks have scored over 9.0 on this scale. The only ones who didn’t were Darnell Savage and Jordan Love. So, for this next threshold, any prospects with a RAS below 9.0 were crossed off the list.
“It’s all important,” said Gutekunst last offseason of the pre-draft process. “First and foremost, it’s all important, the medical, everything’s important. At the end of the day, and this goes back for as long as I’ve done this, you go back to the tape and how they play the game. I think whenever there’s discrepancies, whenever you’re not sure, you go back to the tape, and that’s going to be your best predictor of future success is what they’ve done on tape, and that’s kind of what we live by.”
Admittedly, this year compared to others, there are a lot more top prospects without a completed RAS due to a lack of testing. I went back and forth but made the decision not to exclude those players from the list below.
DE Shemar Stewart, Texas A&M
WR Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona
CB Will Johnson, Michigan
WR Luther Burden, Missouri
DE Mike Green, Marshall
WR Matthew Golden, Texas
OT Josh Simmons, Ohio State
IDL Derrick Harmon, Oregon
IDL Walter Nolen, Ole Miss
DE James Pearce, Tennessee
WR Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State
CB Maxwell Hairston, Kentucky
DE Mykel Williams, Georgia
Prospect’s age
Next, we will take into account a prospect’s age. The Packers have preferred younger, higher-upside players with many of their selections. In previous years, as I alluded to at the start of this, I used 21 years old as the line in the sand for this exercise because six of Gutekunst’s nine first-round picks were that age. The one true outlier was Wyatt at 24 years old, while Eric Stokes and Jordan Morgan were 22.
“I think it’s an individual case,” said Gutekunst at the NFL combine on evaluating experience. “Each guy’s different. Obviously you want them to be ready as fast as they can be, but at the same time it’s a tough league and there’s a development period that’s always going to happen for all these guys.
“So you’re balancing everything from kind of where they’re at now, where you kind of feel their end game is and obviously whatever player we bring in, we want them to get there as fast as we can. But again, it takes time. There’s no shortcut for experience.”
However, this year I’m going to bump that threshold to 22 years old since across the college landscape we are generally seeing older prospects entering the draft than in past years.
WR Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona
DE Shemar Stewart, Texas A&M
CB Will Johnson, Michigan
DE Mike Green, Marshall
WR Matthew Golden, Texas
OT Josh Simmons, Ohio State
IDL Derrick Harmon, Oregon
IDL Walter Nolen, Ole Miss
WR Luther Burden, Missouri
DE James Pearce, Tennessee
WR Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State
CB Maxwell Hairston, Kentucky
DE Mykel Williams, Georgia
Positional thresholds
Within each position group, there have been height and weight thresholds that the Packers have frequently adhered to, many of which go beyond Gutekunst’s tenure as GM.
For offensive tackles, 33-inch arms have been a pretty hard and fast rule for the Packers. At cornerback and wide receiver, the Packers prefer bigger-bodied prospects. With corners, generally 5-11 and 190 pounds is the minimum, while at receiver, it’s been 6-0 – 200 pounds, although we saw Gutekunst recently deviate from that when he selected Jayden Reed, so we will provide a bit of leniency. Then, at defensive end, Gutekunst prefers size there to hold up against the run, so we used 255 pounds as that threshold.
I hate to eliminate Hairston, but even though he may have weighed in heavier at his pro day, he’s listed everywhere at 183 after the NFL combine, and given that my intent is to narrow this list down, I don’t want to operate in the grey. At 183 pounds, that is well below what Gutekunst has drafted at cornerback.
“You know me. I’d love all those guys to be 6-3 1/2 and 220. I’d love that,” Gutekunst said of the cornerback position at the NFL combine. “I do think with what Jeff’s trying to do, there’s a lot more vision and awareness and instincts out there than maybe we’ve played with in the past.”
WR Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona
DE Mykel Williams, Georgia
WR Matthew Golden, Texas
WR Luther Burden, Missouri
DE Shemar Stewart, Texas A&M
CB Will Johnson, Michigan
OT Josh Simmons, Ohio State
IDL Derrick Harmon, Oregon
IDL Walter Nolen, Ole Miss
WR Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State
Senior Bowl and 30 visits
Lastly, Gutekunst’s recent drafts have been very Senior Bowl heavy. Over the last three years, 18 of the Packers’ 35 total draft picks have participated in that event. Official 30 visits have provided us with some insight as well, with 21 of the 90 prospects whom the Packers have hosted from 2022-2024 ending up on the team in some capacity.
Below are the prospects who have either been in for an official 30 visit or participated in this year’s Senior Bowl.
“It’s very important for us,” said Brian Gutekunst following the 2024 draft about the Senior Bowl. “We put a lot of time into it, and like I said, their staff down there in Mobile, they do such a good job getting us to spots where we can really evaluate these guys. We’re very appreciative of that. It’s certainly not by design, but I know we’ve taken a lot of Senior Bowl guys over the years.”
WR Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona
DE Mykel Williams, Georgia
WR Matthew Golden, Texas
DE Shemar Stewart, Texas A&M
IDL Walter Nolen, Ole Miss
WR Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State
OT Josh Simmons, Ohio State
To take this one step further because I want the list smaller, I’m going to be that guy and say that McMillan won’t be on the board when the Packers are picking and with Morgan, Rasheed Walker, and Zach Tom on the roster, I don’t think that offensive tackle is in play in Round 1, so I’ll cross off Josh Simmons as well, which leaves me with my final list:
DE Mykel Williams, Georgia
WR Matthew Golden, Texas
DE Shemar Stewart, Texas A&M
IDL Walter Nolen, Ole Miss
WR Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State