Green Bay Packers: Third Year Player Performance Grades
By Kenny Jilek
Other Draft Picks
5th Round Pick – JK Scott – P
JK Scott was on Pro Football Focus’ All-NFL Second Team last season. This year, he’ll come nowhere close to sniffing that award, and if he does, then maybe Oren Burks really is a fantastic player because they’d be dead wrong.
His average punt is 45.6 yards, ranking him 17th in the league, which seems fine, although you’d expect more from a punter drafted in the fifth round. Then, you take a look at his net average, the stat that really matters because it shows how effective they were at actually flipping the field, and he’s third-last at 36.8 yards per punt.
There are multiple parties to blame for how bad the Green Bay Packers have been covering punts this season, but it starts with the guy putting it in the air. Guys need to get down there, stay in their lanes, and make tackles, but if there isn’t enough hangtime and they don’t have time to get to the returner, that’s when bad things happen. Scott needs to be more consistent. Punters are rarely drafted, much less in the fifth round, so a lot more is expected of him, and he hasn’t delivered this season.
Overall Grade: D+
5th Round Pick – Marquez Valdes-Scantling
And now, we come to the most controversial and discussed player from the Packers 2018 draft class. Every game, MVS giveth and MVS taketh away. There is no explanation other than this is the way things have always been, and this is the way that things will continue to be. It is simply the resting state of the universe that we all live in.
When he giveth, he giveth extremely generously. In fact, he’s leading the NFL in yards per reception at 19.5. He had a monster game against Jacksonville, highlighted by an 83-yard touchdown catch. He caught two touchdowns against the 49ers and was spectacular against the Lions, even making a contested back-shoulder catch for a touchdown.
There have also been near countless occasions where he’s dropped passes that would have been big plays. This all or nothing style came to a head against the Indianapolis Colts when he drew a pass interference call at the end of the first half for a huge game and made a catch deep down the middle that got them to overtime before fumbling it away in the extra period.
He gives and takes every week, but the pressure he puts on defenses to stretch deep is extremely valuable in opening things up underneath, and he’s managed to get over 600 yards receiving this year, so he’s definitely a big contributor to this offense’s success, even when it doesn’t always show up on the stat sheet.
Overall Grade: B-
Equanimeous St. Brown
EQ is a tough guy to really peg down. He had his entire second season cut with a devastating injury after there was some buzz in camp around him getting a bigger role. This year, that bigger role hasn’t shown up, as he’s caught just six passes for 96 yards. In the early weeks, it wasn’t a concern as he needed some time to get up to speed coming off of the injury, but it’s almost the end of the regular season, and we still haven’t seen a ton from St. Brown.
There have been flashes of nice things from him, and he’s done some nice things out of the slot on crossing routes, making a catch in four straight games before last week, but the consistency just isn’t there for him. The most concerning thing was when he got the ball on a jet sweep and seemed to have tons of room to turn up the field, but elected to go outside of the block being made for him and got just seven yards when there was much more open grass to be had.
It’s a good thing for St. Brown that the Packers didn’t draft a wide receiver this season because he would likely be on the roster bubble. He’ll be on that bubble next year, and the Green Bay Packers will need to figure out if he’s worth keeping around.
Overall Grade: D+