After years of waiting, the Green Bay Packers finally selected an offensive skill position player in the first round of the NFL Draft this past week when they elected to add former University of Texas standout Matthew Golden to their wide receiver room.
While Golden was considered to be one of the top offensive threats available in this draft class, it appears as though he wasn't Green Bay's first choice, as the franchise reportedly had its sights set on a different wide receiver.
That wide receiver, according to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, was former Arizona Wildcats star Tetairoa McMillan and they weren't the only team linked to the wideout late in the draft process.
"And as for McMillan himself, Carolina got hot on the Arizona receiver late in the process, like a lot of other teams did (I’d heard the Jaguars, Raiders, Rams, San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers were all high on him, too). On tape, they saw a guy who was rare in how smooth he was for a player at 6' 4", and a guy who almost always caught the ball with his hands, away from his frame—to the point where they had trouble finding a single example of him catching it with his body."
As we all know, McMillan ultimately came off the board with the No. 8 overall pick by the Carolina Panthers, so the Packers never had much of a chance to make a move for what, we can assume, was the top wide receiver on their respective draft board.
If McMillan was never in the cards for Green Bay, as it seems, then coming away with a speedster like Golden is about as good of a consolation prize as anyone could have asked for. The former Texas Longhorns standout should be a natural fit in the Packers' offense and provide Jordan Love with a dynamic weapon on the outside that can stretch the defense any time he is on the field.
In addition to providing Love with another game-breaker at the wide receiver position, Golden's presence on the outside should help open things up for Josh Jacobs on the ground as well. Opposing defenses won't be able to commit as many players to the box in hopes of stopping the run when there is a wide receiver on the outside with sub-4.3 speed. You simply cannot contain both at the same time.
That in and of itself should be enough to make Packers fans excited for what the future of this offense could look like.