Green Bay Packers: 20 best draft picks since the merger

6. Clay Matthews

After a string of seven straight offensive players, we finally get to a defensive guy. And I’m sorry to say there’s only one other player on this side of the ball who appears on the list the rest of the way.

Clay Matthews burst onto the scene during his rookie season of 2009 and recorded 10 sacks right off the bat. Fans had a feeling he was going to be special as general manager Ted Thompson made a very rare move and traded back into the first round of the draft to select him Matthews with the 26th overall pick.

Matthews hasn’t disappointed either, earning six trips to the Pro Bowl and one All-Pro appearance so far. He’s also amassed four seasons with 10 or more sacks and ranks second in team history with 72.5 sacks with the Packers. He’s only two behind Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila and will likely pass him this season.

Unfortunately, Matthews has been slowing down recently and has battled injuries throughout his career. He hasn’t recorded more than eight sacks in a season since he had 11 in 2014.