Green Bay Packers: 3 positions of weakness become strengths

It has been a productive offseason for the Green Bay Packers as they continued to tweak their roster and turned three positions of weakness into strengths.

After a second consecutive losing season, the Green Bay Packers found themselves in an unfamiliar position of uncertainty. With the window on Aaron Rodgers’ career continuing to shrink, GM Brian Gutekunst knew that he had to take an aggressive approach to return Green Bay to their winning ways as quickly as possible.

As a result, it has been a busy offseason in Green Bay, but a productive one as well. An almost entirely new coaching staff was brought in and Gutekunst continued to overhaul the roster with a few big free agent signings and some bold selections in the draft.

Former GM Ted Thompson’s draft and develop philosophy began to hurt this team when his draft picks weren’t performing and he continued to stay away from free agency. The result was a depleted roster that lacked playmakers at key positions.

However, with his aggressive mentality, Gutekunst has turned three positions from weaknesses into strengths in just one offseason.

Defensive front

The name of the game in today’s NFL is getting to the quarterback. Whether it’s from the edge rusher position or up the middle as the quick passing game continues to become more and more prominent, creating pressure is a must.

Last year, many of the sacks that Green Bay did make were because of defensive coordinator Mike Pettine’s creative blitz schemes, rather than consistently getting to the quarterback on their own. After Mike Daniels and Kenny Clark landed on IR, Green Bay was left with Dean Lowry, Tyler Lancaster, and Montravius Adams to create pressure up the middle, while Nick Perry and Clay Matthews underwhelmed on the outside.

However, between free agency and the draft, the defensive front has perhaps become the deepest position on this team. Preston Smith, Za’Darius Smith, and Rashan Gary will give the Packers a whole new look at EDGE which will hopefully lead to more production.

But it isn’t just the EDGE position that benefits from these acquisitions, Gary and Za’Darius will also be used inside to add more depth to the interior defensive line position with Clark and Daniels, while fifth-round pick Kingsley Keke is expected to be a solid rotational player as a rookie.

A defensive front that can consistently create pressure is going to have a trickle-down effect to the rest of the defense and make the unit as a whole, much better.

Safety

To put it simply, the safety position last season was an absolute mess for the Green Bay Packers. HaHa Clinton-Dix was traded, Jermaine Whitehead was cut, Raven Green and Ibraheim Campbell ended up on IR, while Kentrell Brice and Josh Jones were unreliable.

The previous offseason, Gutekunst had revamped the cornerback position and this year it was time to solidify the back-end of the secondary and he did just that with the additions of Adrian Amos and Darnell Savage.

Amos is going to provide Pettine with versatility with his ability to lineup all over the field and is a player that you can count on to be in the correct position. While Savage is going to give this defense an aggressive tackler and a playmaker, both of which are things that this secondary has lacked in recent seasons.

Overall, the Green Bay Packers’ secondary has the potential to be one of the best in the league and the additions of Amos and Savage will go a long ways towards making that happen.

Offensive line

An underrated aspect of last season’s struggles was the constant pressure that Aaron Rodgers found himself under, particularly from the guard positions. Given what we saw from the unit in 2018, there were a number of question marks heading into the offseason.

Lane Taylor would give up eight sacks last year, while right guard was a revolving door between Justin McCray and Byron Bell, and Bryan Bulaga has rarely played all 16 games in his career. Amongst all of the changes that have taken place this offseason, this team only goes as far as Rodgers takes them, so they must keep him upright.

Knowing that addressing these issues was a must, Gutekunst would sign Billy Turner in free agency, draft Elgton Jenkins in the second-round, and fortunately, Cole Madison has decided to return to the team.

Turner will likely take over at right guard but has the versatility to play tackle if needed. Jenkins will come in and immediately push Taylor for a starting job but also has the ability to line up at center or tackle as well. And the coaching staff is very high on Madison, who could compete for starting snaps but at the very least will give Green Bay some depth.

As a whole, the Green Bay Packers roster appears to be in much better shape heading into the 2019 season than it did just a year ago. These three positions that were liabilities in 2018 have now become strengths and will hopefully play big roles in getting Green Bay back into the playoffs.