Will Marshawn Lynch Be Wearing Green & Gold? » Brats & Beer

April 16, 2007
posted under: Marshawn Lynch, mock drafts, NFL Draft, Packers

In about 12 days we’ll all be getting plastered with wall-to-wall coverage of the 2007 NFL Draft, from draft previews, reviews of past drafts, and draft postmortems. It will be two or three solid days of ESPN and NFL Network personalities screaming their heads off, all trying to get the scoop on what’s going to happen, what did happen, and what’s going to happen next. Oh, and Mel Kiper’s hair.

I decided it was time to start looking at some mock drafts to see what the “experts” think about Green Bay’s prospects for this year’s draft, but then I saw that Packer Palace has a quite thorough rundown of nearly every mock draft out there. (Great work, guys.) As it turns out, almost every one of them has the Packers taking running back Marshawn Lynch with the 16th pick, which of course means that’s probably not what will happen.

Obviously replacing Ahman Green in the backfield is a high priority for the Packers this year, and normally I’d be all over them picking someone like Lynch. He was great at Cal the last two years, piling up 1,350 yards last season and averaging 6.1 yards a carry. But on offense this year I think there might be a bigger need to improve at the tight end position.

Green Bay has already lost David Martin to free agency and Donald Lee is a good second man on the depth chart but no starter. Bubba Franks? Well, we saw what happened last season. As much as a good running game can do to open up the passing lanes, a great short-passing offense can make it easier to run and throw deep, and I think that’s probably the direction Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy will go.

It comes down to their commitment to the zone blocking scheme. If they really think they can make a go of it using that system again this year, maybe Lynch isn’t the best pick. I don’t think he saw much zone blocking in college and it would take time to get him up to speed on that in training camp. Vernand Morency, on the other hand, is familiar with how it works and was somewhat productive last year.

So I would not be surprised, nor terribly upset, to see TT trade up in the draft if necessary to get Greg Olsen from Miami. In two seasons with the Hurricanes he caught 87 passes for 1,200 yards and six touchdowns. Zach Miller from Arizona State might also be a good prospect; he had 144 catches for 1,500 yards and 14 TDs in three seasons.

If that were to happen, I’d look for the Packers to take a RB later in the second round, maybe Antonio Pittman from Ohio State or Tony Hunt from Penn State. TT might even make a trade to get a second round-two pick to take a defensive player, probably a corner or safety.

The Packers did pretty well in the draft last year, getting Hawk, Hodge and Jennings in the first three rounds. I think this will be the year we find out if TT is a draft day guru or if he just got lucky last time.