How The 2023 Green Bay Packers Were Built
The Green Bay Packers and general manager Brian Gutekunst are getting back to their Ted Thompson roots and building the team from the ground up. That’s resulted in the youngest NFL team entering 2023 and plenty of young talent up and down the roster.
They took a temporary detour in the final years of the Aaron Rodgers’ era, doing whatever they could to keep their championship window open. That resulted in some short-sighted financial and team-building decisions.
However, Gutekunst has done a tremendous job quickly transitioning back to a long-term approach, acquiring an impressive array of young players with bright futures. Green Bay may not be a championship competitor in 2023, but it shouldn’t be long before they return to those heights.
To better understand how this version of the Packers was assembled, let’s separate players into three categories based on how Green Bay acquired them: draft picks, waivers, and free agency (including undrafted free agents).
Let’s take a deeper look at how the 2023 Green Bay Packers were assembled, including who were draft picks, free agents, and acquired otherwise.
Draft Picks (35)
- David Bakhtiari (2013)
- Kenny Clark (2016)
- Aaron Jones (2017)
- Jaire Alexander (2018)
- Rashan Gary (2019)
- Darnell Savage (2019)
- Elgton Jenkins (2019)
- Jordan Love (2020)
- AJ Dillon (2020)
- Josiah Deguara (2020)
- Jon Runyan (2020)
- Josh Myers (2021)
- Royce Newman (2021)
- TJ Slaton (2021)
- Isaiah McDuffie (2021)
- Quay Walker (2022)
- Devonte Wyatt (2022)
- Christian Watson (2022)
- Sean Rhyan (2022)
- Romeo Doubs (2022)
- Zach Tom (2022)
- Kinglsey Enagbare (2022)
- Rasheed Walker (2022)
- Samori Toure (2022)
- Lukas Van Ness (2023)
- Luke Musgrave (2023)
- Jayden Reed (2023)
- Tucker Kraft (2023)
- Colby Wooden (2023)
- Sean Clifford (2023)
- Dontayvion Wicks (2023)
- Karl Brooks (2023)
- Anders Carlson (2023)
- Carrington Valentine (2023)
- Anthony Johnson Jr. (2023)
Waivers (3)
- Justin Hollins (2022)
- Zayne Anderson (2023)
- Ben Sims (2023)
Free Agents (15)
- Yosh Nijman (2019)
- Preston Smith (2019)
- De’Vondre Campbell (2021)
- Rasul Douglas (2021)
- Rudy Ford (2022)
- Caleb Jones (2022)
- Dallin Leavitt (2022)
- Keisean Nixon (2022)
- Eric Wilson (2022)
- Brenton Cox Jr. (2023)
- Malik Heath (2023)
- Matt Orzech (2023)
- Jonathan Owens (2023)
- Daniel Whelan (2023)
- Emanuel Wilson (2023)
Their draft picks are the meat and potatoes of the Packers’ roster. The team drafted 35 of the 53 players on their roster, with David Bakhtiari being the longest-standing player with the franchise. The last two draft classes are impressive and could be the start of something very special in Titletown.
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Just three players have been claimed off waivers, including two of them this week in safety Zayne Anderson and tight end Ben Sims. We’ll see how long all three of them stick around.
Last but not least are the free agents. Gutekunst has done a nice job finding diamonds in the rough in recent years. Campbell, Douglas, Nixon and Ford figure to play prominent roles on defense this season.