Packers’ 2023 Draft Class Ranks Among Best

A “new era” of Packers football will revolve around quarterback Jordan Love and a superlative 2023 draft class.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Perhaps no team in the NFL needed a strong draft class in 2023 as much as the Green Bay Packers. They were short on receivers and had no tight ends of consequence to help first-year starting quarterback Jordan Love. Plus, the defensive front needed to be restocked.

General manager Brian Gutekunst delivered a group of players who “reshaped the franchise.”

That’s what NFL.com’s Eric Edholm said in grading the Class of 2023 through Year 1.

With a B-plus, the Packers wound up with the fifth-best class overall, according to grades by Edholm and Chad Reuter.

Powered by those high-flying rookies, the youngest team in the NFL in 2023 became the youngest team to win a playoff game since at least the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.

“The Packers needed their 2023 draftees to step into major roles as rookies, and they did just that,” Reuter said via direct message. “Teams don't often make the playoffs with four young pass-catchers and a first-year full-time starting quarterback. Add in Day 3 steals defensive lineman Karl Brooks and cornerback Carrington Valentine and an up-and-coming Lukas Van Ness, and it appears this draft class laid the base of a new era of Packers football.”

Receiver Jayden Reed (second round) and Dontayvion Wicks (fifth round) and tight ends Luke Musgrave (second round) and Tucker Kraft (third round) blew away the production of the free agents who walked out the door: receivers Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb and tight ends Robert Tonyan and Marcedes Lewis.

Reed became the first rookie in NFL history with at least 60 receptions, 750 receiving yards, eight receiving touchdowns, 100 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns. Wicks ranked fourth among all receivers in percentage of catches that produced explosive gains (46.2 percent for 16-plus yards) and was one of the best in yards after the catch, as well.

“The Packers pass catchers have dazzled as big-play specialists,” NFL.com’s Bucky Brooks said in his own rankings. “(They) have taken turns snagging passes from a QB1 committed to playing the game like a pass-first point guard willing to hit the open man.”

Musgrave and Kraft became the second rookie tight end tandem since the 1970 merger to each have 30-plus catches and 350-plus yards. Combined, they caught 65 passes for 707 yards and three touchdowns.

Because the receivers and tight ends were so good, almost lost in the shuffle was the rising play of first-round pick Lukas Van Ness. Including playoffs, he had five sacks in 19 games, with four in the final eight games.

“He has future standout written all over him,” Edholm wrote.

Defensive tackles Colby Wooden and Karl Brooks, selected in the fourth and sixth rounds, respectively, contributed a lot of key snaps to offset the free-agent losses of Jarran Reed and Dean Lowry. Brooks, in particular, was a menace with four sacks and four passes defensed.

And seventh-round cornerback Carrington Valentine might have saved the season. While his play was predictably inconsistent, it’s hard to believe the Packers would have qualified for the playoffs without Valentine starting 12 games to offset the frequent absences of Jaire Alexander and Eric Stokes and the trade of Rasul Douglas.

Big training camps await kicker Anders Carlson, who had a rough rookie campaign, safety Anthony Johnson, who has a chance to start given the potential free-agent departures, and receiver Grant DuBose, who was the odd man out all season.

Click here for the grades for all 32 teams, including which team was No. 1 and how the Packers’ NFC North peers fared.

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