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Packers build championship legacy through NFL Draft

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Continued from last week

GREEN BAY – If you are measuring success in the NFL simply by the number of championships won, then Bart Starr is arguably the best draft pick the Green Bay Packers have ever made.

If your measuring stick is individual accolades and franchise records, then Aaron Rodgers is probably your pick.

Either way the Packers will make the argument they are a draft-and-develop franchise, and that will eventually lead to championships. And while the team has made some impact acquisitions via trades and free agent signings over the years — as we highlighted last month – that is by and large accurate.

The Packers began to lay that foundation nearly ninety years ago, in the very first year of the NFL Draft.

On Feb. 8, 1936, the Packers selected nine hopefuls as part of the inaugural Annual Player Selection Meeting.

With the seventh pick of the first round, Russ Letlow, a guard out of the University of San Francisco, became the Packers' first draft selection. Letlow was an impact player and was named to the NFL All-Decade Team of the 1930s, despite playing only five of the ten years. He helped the Packers win the NFL Championship his rookie year and again in 1939, and was a key member of the 1938 team which lost to the New York Giants in that season’s title game. Letlow was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in 1972.

However, as NFL drafts go, the other eight players taken by the Packers that first year never did materialize into mainstays, or they never even made the team.

Now, this is not a deep dive into every draft in team history. This is intended to show that most impact players – and playoff and championship teams – over the years have been drafted.   

Last year’s team is a good example. The 2023 squad was the youngest team ever to qualify for the NFL postseason – and the lion’s share of that roster (24 players) was acquired through the past two drafts, with the foundation of that team established in prior drafts.

Aaron Jones was a fifth-round selection in 2017 (182nd overall). Defensive standouts Kenny Clark and Jaire Alexander were first-round draft picks in 2016 and 2018, respectively, while Rashan Gary, Darnell Savage and Elgton Jenkens were taken in rounds one and two in 2019. Jordan Love, the team’s latest franchise quarterback, was selected 26th overall in 2020. Also taken that year were AJ Dillon, Josiah Deguara and Jon Runyan. Eric Stokes, Josh Meyers, Royce Newman, T.J. Slaton and Isaiah McDuffie were impactful additions in 2021.

Some of the best examples in NFL history of building winning teams using the Draft are the rosters Vince Lombardi had the luxury of coaching during the 1960s.

Of the thirteen players drafted by the Packers who eventually landed in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH, ten were selected between 1952 and 1958, under the guidance of lead scout Jack Vainisi.

The 1958 NFL Draft alone produced three future HOF inductees — Jim Taylor, Ray Nitschke, and Jerry Kramer – and eventual All-Pro Dan Currie.

The year before Heisman Trophy winner and future Hall of Fame halfback Paul Hornung fell into the Packers’ lap, when they landed the top overall pick under a lottery system used from 1947 to 1958. Hornung is one of 20 Heisman winners to be taken with the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft. He still holds or shares five franchise records, including most points in a season (176), most points in a game (33), and most touchdowns in a game (5).

Then there is Bart Starr, perhaps the shiniest of all the diamonds in the rough there ever were.

Selected by Green Bay in the 17th round (200th overall) of a 30-round NFL Draft in 1956, Starr sat for most of that first season, attempting just 44 passes behind starter Tobin Rote. In 1957 and ’58, Starr split time with Babe Parilli, then platooned with Lamar McHan in 1959 and ’60, as new head coach Vince Lombardi assessed his roster.

On Nov. 6, 1960 — after McHan had led the Packers to four straight victories following a loss by Bart in the first game of the season — Starr took over the starting job and never looked back. Over the following seven seasons, Starr missed just seven starts and led small-market Green Bay to five NFL Championships, including victories in the first two Super Bowls, of which he was named Most Valuable Player.

Starr played 16 seasons for the Packers, and until 2007 held the franchise record for most games played (196), which has since been eclipsed by Donald Driver, Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre, and the current record-holder, Mason Crosby (258).

That 1956 draft also produced tackles Forrest Gregg and Bob Skoronski, whom the Packers selected in the second and fifth rounds, respectively, and Willie Davis, taken by Cleveland in the 15th round (181st overall), whom Vince Lombardi traded for in 1960.

Fearing he still didn’t have the leader of his offense on the roster, Lombardi in 1959 used his first draft pick as Packers’ head coach – and the first overall pick of the entire draft – to take quarterback Randy Duncan, who had led Iowa to the National Championship in 1958. Duncan never played for the Packers, and instead signed with the BC Lions of the CFL, where he played just two seasons. Duncan washed out of professional football in 1961, after just one season with the AFL’s Dallas Texans.

An Iowa pick that did stick was added in 1960, when Lombardi chose halfback Bob Jeter in the second round (17th overall) after selecting halfback Tom Moore in the first round (5th overall).

Lombardi kept adding to his eventual championship rosters in 1961, when he took future Hall of Fame defensive back Herb Adderley with the 12th overall pick, followed by tackle Ron Kostelnik in the second round (26th overall). Halfback Elijah Pitts was also added in the 13th round (180th overall).

Coming off back-to-back NFL Championships in 1961 and ’62, Lombardi in 1963 added to a roster that would give him and Green Bay three straight titles in the coming years.

Lombardi used the 14th overall pick of the 1963 NFL Draft to take future Hall of Fame linebacker Dave Robinson in the first round. Fourteen picks later, Lombardi took defensive back Tom Brown 28th overall in round two.

Robinson and Brown would combine on a game-saving play in the 1966 NFL Championship game that sent the Packers to Super Bowl I against Kansas City.

On fourth down from the Green Bay two-yard line and with time running out, the Dallas Cowboys – trailing by 7 – attempted a rollout pass. Robinson burst into the Cowboy backfield and enveloped QB Don Meredith, who somehow got off a wobbly pass, which was intercepted by Brown in the end zone to seal the win.

But seemingly never content, Lombardi kept adding to his championship-caliber rosters.

Longtime center Ken Bowman was taken in the 8th round of the 1964 draft, while first-round selections Donnie Anderson and Jim Grabowski were backfield additions in 1965 and ’66, followed by running back Travis Williams in 1967. 

What followed throughout the 1970s were a number of top draft picks – including back-to-back NFL Rookie of the Year Award winners — but just one division title and one playoff game.

The 1980s brought more of the same – great individual talent that could never be molded into a championship-caliber team. The end of the decade also brought us arguably the biggest bust in NFL Draft history.

To be concluded in the next edition of Packerland

Packerland, Draft, NFL, Starr, Rodgers, Packers, team, Annual Player Selection Meeting, Green Bay

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