Green Bay Packers Last 10 Drafts Ranked: No. 1 Class of 2014
By Kenny Jilek
Over the next few weeks, I’ve been counting down the last ten Green Bay Packers’ draft classes. That concludes today with the champion, the class of 2014
The rankings are based on the contributions of each player, and their play for other teams, if they’ve left, will be factored in as well because if they turned out to be a good player, that means it was a good pick. A few quantifying measures we’ll be using are total years of primary starters and Pro Bowl appearances that each class produced, both provided by Football Reference. The issue with this is those are cumulative stats, and the last few classes are still developing and will very likely become starters and make some Pro Bowl appearances, so rankings won’t be solely based on those things.
We’ll also look at yards, tackles, sacks, and other stats, but it’s hard to compare apples to oranges with different positions, so there will be a subjective element as well. The final ranking criteria will be the headliner of each draft and how they stack up against the others. Each draft has at least one Pro Bowler, so it’s easy to pick out. Just like in the last article, we’ll split the players into tiers based on how their careers played out and their contributions.
Green Bay Packers Tier 1 – Davante Adams, Corey Linsley, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix
Davante Adams has been making a hard push for the title of best draft pick of the last 10 years lately. Adams has made four straight Pro Bowls, and his 2020 campaign put him on a lot of people’s radars as the number one wideout in the NFL when he led the league in touchdown catches and yards per game. Over the past five seasons, he’s caught 458 passes for 5639 yards and 58 touchdowns. That kind of production is hard to deny. The title of best headliner pick is up for grabs between him and David Bakhtiari, but the difference between the two classes is their supporting casts.
Despite never making a Pro Bowl, Corey Linsley is one of the three picks in the last ten years with an AP All-Pro first-team selection. He’s been an integral part of one of the best offensive lines in football for seven years, starting all but 13 games in that time. Losing him will definitely hurt the Green Bay Packers in the offensive trenches, and the Chargers picked up a real stud with him just a year after they snagged Brian Bulaga.
Ha Ha Clinton-Dix isn’t quite on par with the other two. He did make a Pro Bowl in 2016 when he had five interceptions, but still probably wasn’t quite the impact safety the Packers were looking for when they took him late in the first round. Nonetheless, adding another Pro Bowl selection to this already stacked group makes it even clearer that they’re number one.