Green Bay Packers are “Active” in CB and IDL Markets

This shouldn’t come as a surprise at all, but according to ESPN’s Rob Demovsky, the Green Bay Packers are “active” in the cornerback and interior defensive line markets.

These are arguably the two biggest positions of need that the Green Bay Packers have this offseason.

The current cornerback room is comprised of Jaire Alexander and a number of question marks. With Kevin King’s inevitable departure, that leaves Green Bay with Ka’dar Hollman, Stanford Samuels, Josh Jackson, and KeiVarae Russel as boundary options.

In the slot, an important role in Joe Barry’s defense, Chandon Sullivan is a restricted free agent, and we don’t know whether or not he will be back. But even if he is, adding some competition there isn’t a bad thing.

Along the interior, while we saw promising flashes from Kinglsey Keke, Kenny Clark still needs more help inside and adding another player to the rotation, thus reducing Dean Lowry’s role, could end up making him more effective overall.

Really any boost that a free agent can provide to the interior defensive line will help Clark, as well as the edge rusher and linebacker positions.

On top of that, Green Bay just doesn’t have much depth at that position. In addition to those three players, the only other on the roster options at the moment include Anthony Rush and Willington Previlon.

I’ve said this before, but addressing either — or preferably both — of these positions in free agency will really open up the draft for Green Bay.

If they are unable to land someone in free agency, they’ll enter the draft — especially at cornerback — feeling like they have to address the need early on. However, the risk involved is that we have no idea how the board is going to fall.

On the flip side, signing a free agent or two — and it doesn’t have to be a big name, a veteran stop-gap will work just fine at either position — will provide Green Bay with a lot more flexibility in the draft.

In this scenario, if the board doesn’t fall their way, they won’t feel that they absolutely have to take a player at those positions. They’ll have luxury of addressing another need, knowing that they already have someone in-house to lean on in 2021.

With that said, this is a deep cornerback class, so even if the Packers do add someone in free agency, it shouldn’t stop them from selecting someone early on in the draft. In fact, I’d encourage it—but again, they don’t have to either depending on how things unfold.

Although a number of free agents were signed on Monday, the cornerback and interior defensive line positions remained relatively untouched—which of course, is good news for the Green Bay Packers.

Even though Green Bay doesn’t have a ton of money to spend, I’ll be shocked if they don’t address at least one of these positions during free agency. They are just too big of needs to ignore.