Green Bay Packers Last 10 Drafts Ranked: #9 Class of 2011
By Kenny Jilek
Tier 2 – Derek Sherrod, Alex Green, D.J. Williams, D.J. Smith
This tier of players are guys who all were never primary starters but did make some contributions in their time in the NFL. Derek Sherrod, as the first-round pick, is probably the biggest Green Bay Packers’ draft bust of the past ten years, and that hurts this class in the rankings. He only played in 20 games in his entire career and made just one start before he was out of the league after his fourth season.
Alex Green came to the Packers as a third-round pick, and in his second year, he was the team’s leading rusher with 464 yards on the ground. He didn’t even make the team the next year, and he was out of the league the next year after rushing just 11 times with the Jets that year. His 3.4 yards per carry career average is well below average, and he ended up as the Packers’ feature back pretty much by default in 2012, with James Starks and Cedric Benson only playing a combined 11 games.
D.J. Williams was a tight end picked in the fifth round, so there weren’t high expectations with him, and he wasn’t in the league very long. He made two starts in Green Bay in 2012 and caught seven passes that season for 57 yards, and like Alex Green, he didn’t make the 2013 roster. He then bounced around with four different teams but never caught another pass in the NFL.
The other D.J., taken 45 picks later, was a linebacker who also spent two years on the Frozen Tundra. In 2012, he started all six games that he played in, making four tackles for loss, breaking up two passes, and sacking the quarterback twice. Unfortunately, he was injured and released after the season ended. Without that injury, maybe his story is a lot different, but his career never got back on track, and I would guess that a lot of you, like me, didn’t know his name before seeing it in this article.