Brian Gutekunst drafted 11 players this spring. How did their first seasons shake out?
The Packers were a young team in 2024, but not quite in the same way as in 2023. Last season, the Packers didn’t just play a bunch of rookies and other young players, they relied on them, counting on guys like Jayden Reed and Tucker Kraft to elevate their offense, while fellow rookies Lukas Van Ness and Carrington Valentine played important roles on defense.
This year, we’ve seen plenty of good stuff from the Packers’ rookie class, but the available roles haven’t been quite as big. In fact, outside of Javon Bullard, none of the rookies had a tailor-made spot available for them to start the year. Jordan Morgan had to battle for playing time before his shoulder injury essentially scrapped his season, and Edgerrin Cooper was brought along slowly before ascending into the core role he now occupies.
Still, this year’s draft class has been noteworthy in its own way. Here’s a quick tour through how all of the Packers’ 2024 draftees fared in their rookie season.
Jordan Morgan
Due to a recurring injury, Morgan earned an unfortunate distinction this year: with the exception of Jordan Love no first-round pick in the Brian Gutekunst era played fewer snaps as a rookie than Morgan did this season.
Morgan lined up for just 186 snaps this year. Among players drafted in the first round by Brian Gutekunst (again excepting Jordan Love, who was by design never going to play as a rookie), that’s the least we’ve seen from any player. Rashan Gary was the next closest, playing just 244 snaps as a rookie behind Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith.
Edgerrin Cooper
It took a bit for Cooper to earn playing time, but when he did, he was spectacular. Cooper became just the second rookie since 2000 to record 13 or more tackles for loss in a season while playing 14 or fewer games. The other one? Joey Bosa in 2016.
Javon Bullard
The second of two second round picks in 2024, Bullard played the third-most defensive snaps on the Packers this season, lining up as a safety and slot corner for the Packers. Jaire Alexander is the last rookie to rank that high, also playing the third most defensive snaps for the Packers in 2018.
MarShawn Lloyd
I don’t know of an official record for something like this, but MarShawn Lloyd has to have approached some kind of record for the number of body parts injured this year. At various points throughout 2024, he popped up on the injury list with hamstring, hip, and ankle injuries, and for good measure his appendix ruptured on him. If nothing else, he should be heading into 2025 with fresh legs.
Ty’Ron Hopper
Speaking of fresh legs, Ty’Ron Hopper should be relatively springy at this point in the season. Again, I don’t know if this is a record, but Hopper might have set some kind of mark for most snaps played without needing to move.
An afterthought on defense, most of Hopper’s “work” this season came on special teams, and I use quotes around work intentionally. Yes, he played 215 special teams snaps, but 93 of those snaps came on kickoff coverage and 68 more came on kickoff return, the rest occurring on punt return.
Those breakdowns are significant because the Packers only had 49 kickoffs returned by their opponents and only returned 20 kickoffs themselves. That means of his 161 snaps on those units, Hopper technically only had to move on 69 of them. Good work if you can get it!
Evan Williams
Williams is an important player in the Packers’ secondary, but the back half of his 2024 season has been somewhat marred by injury. He did get off to a very strong start, though, recording an interception in Week 2, just the second game of his NFL career.
That’s the earliest a rookie defensive back has picked off a pass for the Packers since Morgan Burnett got a pick in Week 2 of the 2010 season. Marques Anderson gets an honorable mention here, too, for getting his first career interception in Week 3 of the 2002 season. Anderson was inactive during the first two weeks of that season, but made his debut in style, grabbing an interception and returning it 78 yards for a touchdown.
Jacob Monk
We didn’t get a chance to see the versatile Monk on offense this year, and he played just 43 snaps on special teams. But he was the subject of the quote of the year when Packers’ offensive line coach Luke Butkus said that Monk looked ready to “rip somebody’s lips off” prior to a preseason game. Football: it’s violent!
Kitan Oladapo
I don’t know if anybody’s planning to do any kind of Packers superlatives this year, but allow me to submit Kitan Oladapo for your consideration for “best hair” this year. Keeping up with a bit he started at Oregon State, Oladapo arrived for training camp with vibrant yellow hair. Props for commitment! Other than that, we didn’t see much of Oladapo this season outside of his substantive Week 18 appearance.
Travis Glover
Though Glover played approximately the same number of special teams snaps as his rookie counterpart Jacob Monk, we don’t have a snappy quote for him, so observations about Glover’s season are going to be limited to this: despite being inactive for the first 10 weeks of the season, Glover has been in the lineup for every game since Week 11. Importantly, he was active ahead of veteran tackle Andre Dillard for the final two weeks of the season, which seems like a noteworthy development for a Day 3 pick.
Michael Pratt
Pratt didn’t end up making it in Green Bay, but he did end up making the playoffs. Pratt ended up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who squeaked into the playoffs as the NFC South champions this year. The Packers can’t meet the Buccaneers until the NFC Championship game, though, so a Pratt revenge tour is probably far fetched beyond the many ways it’s already far fetched.
Kalen King
Finally, there’s Kalen King. King didn’t make the 53-man roster this year, but grabbed a practice squad spot and thereby avoided the ignominy experienced by Pratt and 2023 Packers draftee Lew Nichols, neither of whom stuck in any capacity with the team that drafted them.
King didn’t ever actually make it to the field in 2024, but was elevated for one game.