Official 2025 Draft Thread

@Boris posted:

I would've liked Holland too....but ....can't teach speed and Stokes had it in spades before he was Injured. Can't get em all right all the time.

I think people forget Stokes rookie year. He was really good. Just didn't work out with injuries. It happens.

Most players shelf life is 5 years or less.

Stokes has played 2,112 snaps in the NFL and has one interception and has broken up 14 passes (none since his rookie year). It's hard to know what would have happened without the injury, but he never appeared to have good football instincts.

I saw him as similar to Savage. They look great without pads and based on 40 times and testing should be at least above average NFL players, but never really are able to apply their physical gifts.

You have guys like Rasul Douglas (4.59 40) that play better than their measurables suggest they should because they have good instincts. On the other end are guys like Savage (4.36) and Stokes (4.29).

Once in a while you can find a DB with the blazing speed and develop their football instincts (Nick Collins). I would think Savage (and maybe Stokes) were what they were thinking as comps to Collins.

If you get both the measurables and the instincts to start, those are the guys that end up in the HOF (Charles Woodson)

If they had anyone in mind with Stokes when considering developing a DB with raw speed, I would think that would be Shields.  He was even less proven than Stokes coming out of college but turned into a very good DB.  He had impact on their SB run pretty much just using his raw athleticism as a rookie.  Stokes however was much stiffer.

There was a knockout run of low-investment DB's in GB during that era that may have tricked TT into thinking they were easy to find.  The result of that mistake left them with a huge void at CB until JA was drafted.

@DH13 posted:

If they had anyone in mind with Stokes when considering developing a DB with raw speed, I would think that would be Shields.  He was even less proven than Stokes coming out of college but turned into a very good DB.  He had impact on their SB run pretty much just using his raw athleticism as a rookie.  Stokes however was much stiffer.

There was a knockout run of low-investment DB's in GB during that era that may have tricked TT into thinking they were easy to find.  The result of that mistake left them with a huge void at CB until JA was drafted.

That's a good point. The 2010 Super Bowl team's 5 main DBs included one first round pick (Collins), the second best FA signing in Packers' history (Woodson), and then three guys who were UDFA agents and cost them nothing to obtain (Tramon, Shields, and Peprah) may have influenced TT's philosophy.

Shields was an UDFA because he only played one season at CB in college (he was a failed WR) and he got caught with some pot right before the draft. However, I think coaches knew they had something within a week or so of training camp

Difference, of course, between Shields and Stokes is the premium draft selection.

That's why the "meat market" analysis every year. Nobody wants to be the GM that selects a bust using a premium pick.

@Boris posted:

Difference, of course, between Shields and Stokes is the premium draft selection.

That's why the "meat market" analysis every year. Nobody wants to be the GM that selects a bust using a premium pick.

You mean "pull a Mandarich" like Carl Peterson did in 1989?

@MichiganPacker2 posted:

Shields was an UDFA because he only played one season at CB in college (he was a failed WR) and he got caught with some pot right before the draft. However, I think coaches knew they had something within a week or so of training camp

I was just dying, every game, for him to pick one off, hit some open field and really turn on the jets.  He had jaw dropping speed but I don't recall ever seeing it on full display in GB.  There was a brief moment of about 30yds after that final pick vs CHI in the NFCCG where if you watch him in relation to everyone else on the field, he looks like he's on fast forward - but he ran out of grass too soon.

At MIA he returned a kick vs. WIS in a bowl game that showed it.  Had to look it up.  That's what brought me to attention when he signed with GB in 2010.