Since we’re near draft day, everyone seems to have an opinion. Should GB trade up, down, or stay and pick at 12? Personally, I think this is highly situational and depends on who is available, but it got me thinking about trends and recent history. So I took a look back at the last 10 drafts to see how well GB did when they traded up or down, including which picks turned into what players for each team. I’m doing some rough, subjective grades for each player based on where they were taken and their career stats. Generally speaking a bust is a player that doesn’t end up playing at all or contributes very little, but again this is weighted by how high they were taken - it’s hard to call any player taken in the 6th or 7th round a bust.

2008

Packers trade with Jets to move 6 spots down (30 to 36) and pick up an extra second round pick (60).
GB Players:
36 - Jordy Nelson (great)
60 - Pat Lee (bust)
Jets Players:
30 - Dustin Keller (average)
Verdict: Packers clearly come out ahead, despite Pat Lee being a bust.

Packers trade with Saints to swap 2008 7th (237) Adrian Arrington for 2009 6th (187) Brandon Underwood.
Verdict: Both players sucked and nobody cares. Saints get the win simply for the fact that Brandon Underwood is a piece of crap, best known for ripping the 2010 commemorative Super Bowl necklace off his girlfriend and tossing her out of the car.

2009

Packers trade up with the Patriots to get back into the first round.
GB Players:
26 - Clay Matthews (great)
126 - Jamon Meredith (bust)
NE Players
41 - Darius Butler (below average)
73 - Derek Cox (below average) - (pick traded to Jaguars)
83 - Brandon Tate (below average)
Verdict: Packers win. Despite another bust in Meredith, Mathews saves the day, while the 3 picks they gave up ended up being depth level guys, though all 3 stayed in the league for a while.

2010

Packers trade up with the Eagles, a 3rd (86) and 4th (122) were surrendered to move up 15 spots (71).
GB Players:
71 - Morgan Burnett (above average)
PHI Players:
86 - Daniel Te'o-Nesheim (bust, also a sad story here)
122 - Mike Kafka (bust)
Verdict: GB with another clear win. Morgan Burnett may not have been an elite safety, but a solid 7 year starter in the 3rd round leaves little to complain about.

2011

Three mid-late round trades happened in 2011.

GB Players:
141 - D. J. Williams (below average)
186 - D. J. Smith (average)
DEN Players:
129 - Julius Thomas (good)
204 - Virgil Green (great)
Verdict: Denver wins big here.

GB Players:
179 - Caleb Schlauderaff (bust) - traded for 2012 #224, which was traded again WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END?
218 - Ryan Taylor (average)
SF Players:
163 - Daniel Kilgore (above average)
MIA Players:
174 - Charles Clay (great)
231 - Frank Kearse (average)
Verdict: Another late round loss for GB, a whole lot of effort to pick two crappy players.

2012

In 2012 we saw three trades, all to move up, including a trade with New England to get back a pick that was previously traded to them. No takesies backsies!

GB Players:
51 - Jerel Worthy (bust)
PHI Players
59 - Vinny Curry (above average)
123 - Brandon Boykin (average)
Verdict: Clear loss for Green Bay, especially painful for a pick this high.

GB Players:
62 - Casey Hayward (good)
NE Players:
90 - Jake Bequette (bust)
163 - Traded back to GB lol
Verdict: Big win here that would have been even better had they known how to get the most out of Hayward.

GB Players:
163 - Terrell Manning (below average)
NE Players:
197 - Nate Ebner (good)
224 - Alfonzo Dennard (good)
235 - Jeremy Ebert (below average)
Verdict: NE gets revenge of a sort here. Two late round depth guys who stuck around for a while. GB wins out overall with the two trades though.

2013

Four trades this year, 3 of which moved down to pick up some extra late round picks. How many 6-7th rounders do you need Ted?

GB Players:
61 - Eddie Lacy (average)
173 - Traded to DEN
SF Players:
55 - Vance McDonald (average)
Verdict: Lacy had a couple excellent years and then fell off. McDonald has been more steady but unexceptional for most of his career, having a good year last year. GB got an extra pick here which gives them the win.

GB Players:
93 - Traded to MIA
216 - Charles Johnson (average)
SF Players:
88 - Corey Lemonier (below average)
Verdict: Johnson had minimal production for a couple teams after failing to stick with GB, a pretty good player for a 7th round pick that probably sticks on a team with less depth at WR. #93 turns into 3 more picks with another trade, one of which is quite notable. Packers win here.

GB Players:
109 - David Bakhtiari (exceptional)
146 - Traded to DEN
224 - Kevin Dorsey (below average)
MIA Players:
93 - Will Davis (below average)
Verdict: For some reason GB keeps Dorsey over Johnson, who may have developed in GB’s system. But the real story here is picking up Bakhtiari, perhaps the best LT in the entire NFL, while picking up some extra picks, one of which helps to move up into the 4th and grab Franklin. All this mid-late round trading up / down seems absurd but GB really nails this and shows there is a method to the madness.

GB Players:
125 - Johnathan Franklin (below average)
DEN Players:
146 - Quanterus Smith (below average)
173 - Vinston Painter (below average)
Verdict: Not much in this one. DEN gets two marginal late round players to GB’s 1. Franklin is an unfortunate case, showing potential before suffering a career ending injury, this could have easily been a big win for GB had they had better luck here.

2014

In a rather shocking development, there were no trades this year.

2015

Hello darkness, my old friend. Surprise, surprise, the Packers traded with the Patriots again.

GB Players:
147 - Brett Hundley (average)
NE Players:
166 - Joe Cardona (average)
247 - Darryl Roberts (above average)
Verdict: GB gets a backup QB for a few years who was good enough to prove that he wasn’t good enough. NE gets a long snapper. Roberts ends up doing pretty well for himself, but with the Jets. NE wins here I guess though one could argue that even a low end backup QB has more value than a long snapper and a journeyman corner. Hundley sucks though, so I won’t be the one to make that argument.

2016

The Packers trade up in the second to pick an OL who as of yet has been very disappointing. Still time for him to turn it around but it’s not looking good.

GB Players:
48 - Jason Spriggs (bust)
IND Players:
57 - T. J. Green (below average)
125 - Antonio Morrison (average)
248 - Austin Blythe (great)
Verdict: Colts win here, and amusingly end up trading Antonio Morrison back to GB for Lenzy Pipkins. Blythe ends up working out rather well, but for LA rather than IND, starting all 16 games last year on a team that made it to the super bowl.

2017

Two trades this year, both moving down a few spots in exchange for extra late round picks. A bit early to come to concrete conclusions on this one.

GB Players:
33 - Kevin King (good)
108 - Vince Biegel (below average)
CLE
29 - David Njoku
Verdict: We’ll call this one a draw. At this point both teams got starters. King’s rating could go up or down depending on whether he can stay healthy.

GB Players:
175 - DeAngelo Yancey (bust)
238 - Devante Mays (average)
DEN Players:
172 - Isaiah McKenzie (average)
Verdict: DEN wins here, nobody cares, and I start to question my life choices.

2018

Ah, Brian Gutekunst’s first draft, and boy is it a doozy. Being such a recent draft, rating the players is somewhat ridiculous, but I’ll give it a go.

GB Players:
27 - Traded to SEA
147 - Traded to LA
2019 30 - Not picked yet
NO Players:
14 - Marcus Davenport (average)
Verdict: See below

GB Players:
18 - Jaire Alexander (great)
SEA Players:
27 - Rashaad Penny (average)
76 - Traded to Pitts, who selected Mason Rudolph (incomplete)
Verdict: GB nabbs what looks to be an excellent starting corner, and a 2019 first round pick. Early indications are
a super duper major win for GB here.

GB Players:
88 - Oren Burks (below average)
CAR Players:
101 - Ian Thomas (above average)
147 - Traded to LA, who selected Micah Kiser (incomplete)
Verdict: Packers lose here. Oren Burks could easily pan out and flip this one though, as early as the 2019 season if he takes a second year hump.

GB Players:
Deshone Kizer (incomplete)
101 - Traded to CAR
138 - Cole Madison (bust)
CLE Players:
Demarious Randall
114 - Traded to DET, who selected Da'Shawn Hand (above average)
150 - Genard Avery (above average)
Verdict: GB looks pretty bad here, with Randall having a decent season with a change of scenery in CLE. But he was likely to get cut, so getting a backup QB for him is not so bad. Kizer could still work out, as could Madison, so this would could turn around too.

Conclusion

GB has been fairly good at trading, whether it be up or down. For the early round failures of Jerel Worthy and Jason Spriggs, they’ve picked up Mathews, Nelson, Burnett, Hayward, Lacey, and Alexander. Later round trades have been somewhat of a mixed bag, outside of the brilliant Bakhtiari pick, but late round picks tend to be late round picks for a reason, so I won't hold that against them.

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Kudos for the work you put in.
It is situational. My guess is there will be enough players available and another team willing to pay to move up. GB accommodates for a price.

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Yeah for sure, I'm more of a historian than an oracle, so I won't try to predict, but I'm sure there are a lot of situations where it makes sense to trade up or down. It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.

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Underwood also rented two ugly callgirls who got caught robbing him, then beat him to the police by claiming that all the Packers players on that hold outing raped them.

Also Jamon Meredith hung around the league for quite some time. He didn't make OUR team, but he was good enough to play. He was the guy called the "Locker Room Lawyer."

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Underwood sure was a classy guy.

Good point on Meredith, looks like he played in 67 games, starting 30, that's pretty good for a 5th round pick.

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Trading up in the first round to nab Darnell Savage represents the most aggressive draft-day move the Packers have performed since trading into the 1st round to select Clay Mathews in 2009. In fact, these trades are quite similar. In both years, GB used an early 1st round pick on an athletic defensive lineman, then moved up to select another defender they were high on. Let's take a look at how these trades compare.

I've listed trade values for the Jimmy Johnson and Rich Hill value charts respectively.

2009
GB Players:
26 | JJ 700 | RH 222.74 - Clay Matthews
126 | JJ 46 | 20.21 - Jamon Meredith
Total Value: JJ 746 | RH 242.95
NE Players
41 | JJ 490 | 145.59 - Darius Butler
73 | JJ 225 | 65.36 - Derek Cox
83 | JJ 175 | 52.44 - Brandon Tate
Total Value: JJ 890 | 263.39

On paper, GB gave up too much to move up in 2009 when looking at either chart (JJ -144 | RH -20.44).

2019
GB Players:
21 | JJ 800 | RH 260.82: Darnell Savage (FS)
SEA Players:
30 | JJ 620 | RH 196.31: Deandre Baker (CB) - pick traded to NYG
114 | JJ 66 | RH 26.40: Dru Samia (G) - pick traded to MINN
118 | JJ 58 | RH 24.15: Hjalte Froholdt (G) - pick traded to NE
Total value: JJ 744 | RH 246.86

On paper, Green Bay got the better deal with both charts (JJ +56 | RH +13.96). Seattle went into the draft with few picks, so it's not surprising that they traded down to get a few more, even if they didn't get the best deal in terms of the usual trade value calculations. Amusingly, Seattle turned around and traded all 3 of these picks. At this point we have no idea how any of these kids will turn out, so I won't attempt to do grades or come to a conclusion.

Both trades involved a significant amount of risk. In 2009, they moved up further (mid 2nd to late 1st) and ended up giving up 3 top 100 picks to get back into the first round (and got back a 5th as well). In 2019, they didn't move up as far, and naturally didn't have to surrender quite as much capital to do so.

https://www.packersnews.com/story/sports/nfl/packers/2019/03/25/packers-notes-ted-thompson-targeted-clay-matthews-2009-draft/3264638002/  - Here's a snippet:



It's very interesting how much the above article seems to foreshadow the 2019 trade. Was this a case of Gutekunst following in Thompson's footsteps, perhaps foolishly so, or will he be able to recreate the same magic that Thompson conjured up with the Clay Mathews pick? Only time will tell.

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The Seahawks being short on picks and their position was fortuitous for Gutekunst. If Seattle had more picks and had an idea that Baltimore and Indy wanted Savage, they could have leveraged that into GBs 3rd rounder. It's also hard to quantify how much GMs knowing each other goes into these deals. Did Schneider prefer GB as a trade partner simply because he had been in the organization and knew Gutekunst from his time there?

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