When a team has won as many games as the Packers have in recent years, with as many of their own draft picks on the depth chart as they have, it’s clear the team considers what it does in April the backbone of the franchise.
The team the Broncos will see Sunday features 34 draft picks on Green Bay’s current 53-man roster to go with six players who were signed as undrafted players to begin their NFL career.
That’s 40 of their own, homegrown players. Those kinds of teams can overcome injuries, replace the players they do lose in free agency and remain relatively young overall moving from one season to the next.
And one of the things the Packers do well is take the best player when their draft turn rolls around, regardless of position.
They resist the temptation of drafting for need. And no matter how big the hole is on the depth chart, there is no quicker way to leave impact players on the board and lose impact draft classes than to draft solely for need.
The Packers didn’t really need quarterback Aaron Rodgers in 2005, but when he tumbled down the draft board, the Packers swept him up. And during the three years Rodgers spent on the sideline behind Brett Favre, the Packers were patient and developed him as they have their other picks.
Consider the Lombardi Trophy from February the best of the good things that came with that wait.
This year’s example in Green Bay is Randall Cobb.
The Packers already had Greg Jennings, Donald Driver and Jordy Nelson among the top three players at wide receiver, so they didn’t need to use a premium pick — a second-rounder in this case — on another.
But if you’ve drafted well, have depth and continue to grab the best talent, then you gladly pick a player like Cobb in the second round.
Cobb is a smart player who started games at quarterback and wide receiver at Kentucky while also returning punts and kickoffs. He ran 4.55 (on the electronic clock) in his 40-yard dash at the scouting combine — several teams had him at 4.46 or 4.47 hand-timed — and rushed for at least 300 yards, plus caught at least 21 passes, in all three of his seasons.
In 2010 he had 1,017 yards receiving and was an All-American as an all-purpose player.
And in his first regular-season game for the Packers — the season opener against the Saints — he returned a kickoff 108 yards for a touchdown. It tied the NFL record and set a franchise record.
He also had a touchdown catch in the game to become just the second player in NFL history to return a kickoff and catch a touchdown pass in his professional debut.
Those are the kind of stories teams that succeed in the draft get to tell. Because the Packers didn’t pass on Cobb, opting for a bigger “need,” they didn’t jump to fill a job instead of filling their roster.
If the Broncos are truly going to rebuild their franchise through the draft, those are exactly the decisions they’ll have to make over and over again.
Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com
