Lance Kendricks Jersey , that might be over after Friday’s testing. Meanwhile, the Packers show interest in Noah Fant, Irv Smith Jr. and the top tight ends in the class."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections The APC PodcastPackers Film RoomFantasy Football AdviceCSTShareTweetShareShare2019 NFL Scouting Combine Day 3: Top OL Jonah Williams scuffles, Packers meet with top TEsJonah Williams ran a good 40 time at the combine, but the rest of his testing didn’t meet the Packers’ usual standards for linemen. Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY SportsNo day underscores the hilarity of the basic premise of the NFL combine like the offensive line workouts, watching 300-pound men running around in spandex. While it’s true offensive linemen are rarely going to be running 40 yards down the field or doing the kinds of drills we see in Indianapolis, the movement skills of these dancing bears can be instructive. Who looks like an NFL athlete and who doesn’t? It’s not everything, but it’s not nothing either. Garrett Bradbury jumped out during the athletic testing, posting a 4.95 40 with a 1.74 10-yard split at nearly 6-foot-3 and 306 pounds. He also had one of the better verticals at 31 inches and stellar agility scores with a 4.53 shuttle time to go with a 7.41 3-cone. The North Carolina State lineman can play center or guard in the NFL and his movement skills in the drills emphasize what he shows on tape as a blocker in space. Though the Packers don’t generally draft interior college lineman, Bradbury might be the kind of athlete Green Bay makes an exception to get given how much the front office prizes athletic traits with offensive lineman. Questions about Alabama left tackle Jonah Williams’ arm length didn’t stop there. He ran 5.1 with a 1.77 split at 6-foot-4, 302 pounds which was the good. The bad was bad, with his agility times coming in well below where the Packers prefer with their offensive lineman. He did have one of the best lines of the combine so far so there’s that, but even for someone who might have to be a guard, it wasn’t a great showing. Williams, for his part, says he just wants the chance to compete, wherever it is.“I’ll play anywhere a team wants me to play but I was the best tackle in college football,” Williams said. His salty demeanor shows up on tape too. He’s a fighter. In the afternoon, the running backs took center stage, of particular interest to the Packers who have already met with some of the most intriguing names in the draft including Alabama’s Josh Jacobs, Stanford’s Bryce Love, and Memphis standout Darrell Henderson. Though running back isn’t a pressing need for the Packers Davon House Jersey , Matt LaFleur’s insistence on balance and sharing the backfield load could very well lead Brian Gutekunst to pick one of these guys in the middle rounds, much like 2017. Jacobs didn’t work out as the consensus RB1, but Green Bay would have to see him take a major tumble to go that route. That makes the workouts for some of the guys projected in the middle rounds more salient for them. Henderson followed a disappoint first 40 with a 4.49 time while FAU back Devin Singletary underwhelmed with a 4.66, though his best attribute is his ability to make guys miss. And while they didn’t work out, nearly every top-tier pass rusher came measured in above where they were projected from a size standpoint. Montez Sweat, at 6-foot-6, 260 pounds with a 7-foot wingspan looks like a 747, while Jachai Polite (258) and Brian Burns (249) added considerable weight to perform in Indianapolis. They haven’t tested out yet and those numbers will be important, but this impressive group cleared the first hurdle with no problems. Tight ends likewise didn’t work out, but a number of players mentioned meetings with the Packers including nearly every top-tier prospect. Noah Fant, Jace Sternberger and Irv Smith Jr. said they would meet with Green Bay. T.J. Hockenson was cagey in not mentioning any specific teams, but it would be easily to infer he’s in the mix as well. With the presence of Jimmy Graham, the Packers need a quality blocking tight end opposite him, preferably a player who can blossom into a more full-time pass catcher once Graham moves on. Matt LaFleur’s offense relies heavily on a solid run game and he’s been unequivocal about believing in sharing carries in the backfield. Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams present a more-than-solid 1-2 punch, but adding depth and variance of skillset makes sense for the Packers. Finding a back to add into the mix will be on the agenda for Gutekunst, as will picking through a deep group of offensive lineman to solidify the right guard spot. Pairing them with a dual-threat tight end rounds out the run-game rebuild. Friday will go a long way to shaking out who the Packers will be targeting come spring to complete just such an overhaul.Aaron Rodgers means Packers can afford not to take risks, not other way around The Green Bay Packers don’t have to take risks because they have Aaron Rodgers. It’s a sentence that can be read two ways. Some argue that the team should pay whatever it takes. That Time is running out. That because Aaron Rodgers will be gone soon anyway, the Packers have to do whatever it takes to win another Super Bowl now even if it means mortgaging the future. Instead and in order, no, no it isn’t, and no they don’t. In fact, the presence of Aaron Rodgers is precisely why Green Bay doesn’t have to undertake enormous capital investment with its roster.Ted Thompson went a little too far in the other direction when it came to team building Dean Lowry Jersey , forgetting free agency existed and relying too heavily on the draft to build his team. That left the Packers undermanned and underdeveloped when he finally saw the door. But in 2016, Rodgers engaged in a video game-like run to carry an undermanned and underdeveloped team to the brink of the Super Bowl. The Packers weren’t the best team in 2014, but nearly went to the Super Bowl anyway because of Rodgers’ brilliance. His mere presence, the fact he can win any game by himself, means Brian Gutekunst doesn’t need to give up his financial flexibility and unmatched draft capital for one player. Would Khalil Mack have made the Packers better? No question. He makes them the Super Bowl favorite. And that’s a goal worthy of seeking to be sure. But the Chicago Bears also gave Mack $141 million dollars, a sum that would have accounted for a quarter of the Packers cap with Aaron Rodgers’ new mega-deal. Ryan Pace also gave up three top 100 draft picks, including a pair of first-rounders, on a team that isn’t near able to compete for a Super Bowl title. Green Bay doesn’t need to take such enormous gambles. Mack certainly showed he’s capable of living up to that contract. He was the defensive player of the year just two seasons ago, playing so well he earned first-team All-Pro from the PFWA at two positions. Chicago is attempting to borrow the Rams’ model of maximizing their spending with a rookie quarterback salary on the books and it could work for them in a year or two when Trubisky may finally be ready to be an NFL quarterback (he was decidedly not last season). There’s no comparable move in recent NFL history, making it difficult to suss out the true risks and reward here, but plenty of Packers fans were clamoring around the draft for a trade up. Go get the impact pass rusher the team needed. Trade up for Denzel Ward, the top corner in the draft. Gutekunst did the opposite, choosing instead to wait patiently, fleece the New Orleans Saints, and wind up with three potential Day 1 starters on defense including the player Pro Football Focus said had one of the best preseasons in the NFL and who Peter King just picked to be DROY (Josh Jackson). Good process is good process regardless of the quarterback position, but it’s even better when Aaron Rodgers is the quarterback. The Packers can afford not to gamble because they don’t have to. They have Rodgers. None of that should suggest they shouldn’t attempt to make the roster better. They should. And Gutekunst has aggressively set about doing that, bringing in players like Jimmy Graham, Muhammad Wilkerson, Tramon Williams, Marcedes Lewis and Byron Bell to round out the roster and add veteran leadership to the team. It was those moves that separates Ted Thompson from “great GM” to “all-time great.”Rodgers increases the margin for error, but also mitigates the need for risk. Calculated risk, like making Graham the highest paid tight end in the league on a short-term deal Kentrell Brice Jersey , represents the Platonic ideal for moves in the Rodgers era. It’s how the Patriots have built a perennial Super Bowl team around Tom Brady. Bill Belichick traded for Randy Moss, but that only cost them a fourth-round pick. They traded for Brandin Cooks with a first, then promptly re-sold him for another first, a move they likely knew they could (and likely would) make. The reasons are obvious: the pass rush is the No. 1 position of need on this team in 2018, but what about 2019? Or 2020? Paying so much on long-term deals to two players with subverted future resources to make other positions better puts a team in a potentially precarious position. If Bryan Bulaga can’t stay healthy, would the Packers have the financial or draft capital to fix that problem? If none of these young receivers pan out, can Green Bay survive with Davante Adams and spare parts? Money and draft picks would make finding additional weapons much easier. It’s not that trading for Khalil Mack would have been a bad idea. And it’s not even a gamble in a football sense; he definitely makes the Packers better. But at what cost? The answer both in dollars and opportunity cost could have been enormous. If Gutekunst had done it and won the Packers a Super Bowl, most fans would have been OK with the move, and rightfully so. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been a risk from a team building standpoint. Geronimo Allison, an undrafted player, comes up and catches a critical touchdown in a Week 17 game against the Lions in 2016 and wins the game against the Bengals in OT in 2017. When you have a field-tilter like Rodgers, moves on the margins push to the fore. Carrying Allison on the roster compared to signing a more expensive free agent was a risk, but one the Packers can take because they have No. 12. It’s a small one, but calculated and with little cost. Rodgers’ mere presence can take a small move and make it a big one.Trading up would have been a (smaller) risk, but it could have worked out. It’s hard to imagine working out better than what actually played out with Gutekunst ending up with a king’s ransom and young defenders who already look like impact players. Just because Rodgers is 34 (still the prime for a QB by the way) doesn’t mean Green Bay should start falling all over itself trying to win now at the cost of its future. That future, thanks to Gutekunst, still includes Rodgers for at least 6 seasons and presumably Gutekunst intends to be in the building even longer. The same desired outcome, a Super Bowl title, can be achieved with less risk because of the unique player Green Bay has under center. Ted Thompson understood that and built a team that was positioned to contend for years. They have. Whatever deficiencies he showed were in keeping with the premise that success could be achieved without enormous risk. That would be true even without the greatest quarterback to ever pick up a football, but having that player makes it even more apt. The Packers don’t have to take huge risks because they have Aaron Rodgers.