Brian Gutekunst tends to favor having numerous opportunities to bolster the team. As the Green Bay Packers’ general manager, he not only values having a surplus of draft picks (no team has made more selections than Green Bay since 2022), but he has also developed a pattern of drafting three players at a specific position of need.
In six out of Gutekunst’s seven drafts as general manager, he has chosen three players at the same position each year, with the exception of 2019. This trend continued this year, with the selection of three safeties and three offensive linemen.
These decisions followed the departure of safeties Darnell Savage, Jonathan Owens, and Rudy Ford, as well as offensive linemen Jon Runyan Jr. and Yosh Nijman in free agency, along with the release of offensive tackle David Bahktiari.
Gutekunst and the Packers’ front office don’t enter the draft with the intention of fulfilling a specific positional quota. Instead, their approach is rooted in the principle of selecting the best player available who fits the team’s needs, regardless of previous selections.
“After Day 3 of the draft, Gutekunst stated, ‘I think we tried to follow the board, and I’d like to think that we’re disciplined enough that even though we’ve picked a guy at that position, if the highest-rated guy is at that position, we’re not afraid to stay there.’
He added, ‘I think you can make a mistake maybe because ‘hey, we just picked a guy at this position, maybe we should not take him even though he might be the highest rated guy,’ but I think we do a pretty good job of staying disciplined to the process.’
While history doesn’t always perfectly predict future outcomes, it can indicate trends that may persist. Reflecting on Gutekunst’s past “triple dip” drafts, it’s reasonable to expect that at least one of the safeties and offensive linemen selected this year will emerge as a valuable player for the Packers.”