NCAA’s ‘COVID Year’ Means Older Draft Prospects for Packers

Packers GM Brian Gutekunst has generally shied away from drafting older prospects. The 2022 NFL Draft is filled with them, though, thanks to the NCAA awarding an additional year of eligibility.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The NFL Draft is how teams get younger and, potentially, better. In the 2022 draft that commences on Thursday, teams like the Green Bay Packers, of course, will try to get better. They might not necessarily get younger, though.

As a way to grapple with COVID, the NCAA gave players an additional year of eligibility. That led to a paper-think draft class last year but a cup-runneth-over draft class this year. However, that added year on the college football field means a lot of players will be entering the NFL a year older than normal.

A text search through Dane Brugler’s exhaustive NFL Draft preview discovered there are five draft-worthy prospects in this year’s draft who already are 25. Another 13 are 24 today but will turn 25 before the 2022 season kicks off in September. Additionally, there are 46 draft-worthy prospects who are 24. (By “draft-worthy,” we mean players not listed under Brugler’s “Best of the Rest” sections.)

The Packers have added 37 players in the four drafts conducted by general manager Brian Gutekunst. According to Stathead’s Draft Finder, the Packers have picked only three players who would be 24 as of Sept. 1 of their rookie seasons: long snapper Hunter Bradley (seventh round, 2018), cornerback Ka’dar Hollman (sixth round, 2019) and right guard Royce Newman (fourth round, 2021). Hollman was the only player who actually was 24 when drafted.

Meanwhile, Gutekunst selected six players who would be 21 as of Sept. 1 of their first season. That list includes first-round picks Jaire Alexander in 2018, Rashan Gary in 2019 and Jordan Love in 2020. Last year’s first-round pick, Eric Stokes, was 22.

Of the 13 players selected in the first three rounds, six were 21, four were 22 and three were 23 by Sept. 1.

Age “absolutely” matters in the final evaluation, Gutekunst said on Monday.

“It’s something we haven’t seen a lot of over the past five, 10 years,” he said. “Not only seeing so many older players in this draft but then the volume, specifically, in the bottom of the draft with all these guys that came back for an extra year. Yeah, the age factor is part of the equation as we look at it and judging the merits of what they did in the past maybe compared to what they did this past year.”

In two notable cases, the age element is a potentially big deal in this draft.

Georgia defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt, who is considered a likely first-round pick, took advantage of the “COVID year” and turned 24 on March 31. Central Michigan offensive tackle Bernhard Raimann, who has the potential to be a Day 1 starter at right tackle, will turn 25 on Sept. 23. He is an older prospect because of a two-year stint in the Austrian military.