Green Bay Packers 2021 NFL Draft Prospects to Know: WR Rondale Moore

Is this the year? Will the Green Bay Packers take a wide receiver in the first round? Based on numerous mock drafts out there, draft analysts are still holding out hope that 2021 is in fact the year that Green Bay “finally” gets Aaron Rodgers another weapon on offense.

With no receivers currently under contract for the 2022 season, I’m here to tell you that the Green Bay Packers will draft a receiver in this year’s draft. Now, whether or not that’s in Round 1, that remains to be seen. Recent history says they won’t. But if they do, one name to know is Rondale Moore from Purdue.

Moore burst on to the scene in 2018 as a true freshman with a monster season. He was targeted a whopping 154 times, hauling in 74 percent of those passes for 1,258 yards and 12 touchdowns, with a majority of his snaps coming from the slot.

That season, Moore was one of the most productive slot receivers in the nation, finishing second in total yards and fifth in yards per route run, according to Pro Football Focus ($). He also put up an absurd amount of YAC, with 892 of his total yards coming after the catch–which was first in all of college football that season.

And for what it’s worth, his offensive grade of 88.8 from PFF was the sixth-highest among all wide receivers in 2018.

Unfortunately, we haven’t seen a ton of Moore since then. He fought a hamstring injury in 2019 that limited him to only four games, and this past year, due to the shortened season and on-again, off-again nature that many teams faced, he appeared in only three games.

Having played only seven total games the last two years, it does raise some question marks, but it’s hard to ignore the ability that Moore has and what he can bring to an NFL offense. Here is some of what Kyle Crabbs of The Draft Network had to say about Moore in his pre-draft report:

"“When healthy, Moore is a multi-purpose weapon who can break open a football game with any touch of the football; he’s provided run after catch, special teams plays, rushing usage out of the backfield, and vertical receiving over the middle of the field. There isn’t a lot that Moore cannot do.But Moore, for all of his merits and gifts as an athlete, has endured significant durability issues throughout his three years at Purdue, and any NFL team drafting him is effectively doing so based on the play he put on display in 2018 as a true freshman when he arrived on the scene in a big way and embarrassed Ohio State on his way to becoming a household name.”"

In the Matt LaFleur offense, Moore would give the Green Bay Packers a true slot receiver–while that’s not a requirement for LaFleur’s system, it would provide a nice change of pace from the big-bodied receivers that Green Bay has on their roster. His speed and explosiveness would also come in handy on jet sweeps, wide receiver screens, and as the motion man–helping LaFleur achieve that “illusion of complexity” that he desires.

Basically, just find a way to get Moore the ball in space and let him do the rest from there. Which, again, is something that LaFleur is very good at scheming up.

However, when discussing Moore and his fit with the Packers, something that must be discussed is his size. He is currently listed at 5’9″ – 175 pounds, although he is very well put together, that is well below the 6’0″ – 200 pound threshold that Green Bay typically desires in their receivers.

We’ve seen the Packers make an exception to this rule in the past with Randall Cobb, but he was still listed at 5’11” – 190 pounds coming out of Kentucky. Two inches taller and 15 pounds heavier than Moore.

Now, with that said, that doesn’t mean that Moore isn’t on the Green Bay Packers’ radar. In fact, Green Bay is one of the teams that has met with Moore as part of the pre-draft process, but it’s certainly something worth noting given the Packers’ draft history.

How much Moore’s size and missed time on the field will play into the Packers’ decision to take him or not if he’s available remains unknown–it’s simply just a guess at this point. But from a pure football standpoint, he would be an excellent fit in the LaFleur offense with his speed and ability in space, and he would provide this unit with an element that they just don’t have at the moment.