The Green Bay Packers are gearing up for this week’s NFL draft and the 2025 season beyond. The franchise’s general manager, Brian Gutekunst, held his annual pre-draft press conference recently and was candid on a number of topics.
One of those being the readiness level he feels the franchise’s roster is at heading into the draft.
“If we had to go play next week I feel really good about our roster,” Gutekunst said. “I feel like we could win and go compete. Really across the board. “Hopefully, as this draft unfold,s we’re able to just sit back and select the best player that falls to us. I think that’s (a position) we prepare ourselves to be in.”
Gutekunst feels the team is in a position where the team’s first-round selection won’t have to start before he is ready.
“I think you’d love to (have him play right away),” Gutekunst said. “It’s great when they do, but that’s not always the case. The transition to the National Football League is tough. It’s not always easy. A lot of times it’s really determined by opportunity.”
He also admitted that things aren’t going to go exactly as the team plans when the draft officially begins.
“There’s many tests in high school I went into that test knowing I’m not prepared, and how that feels, and I know that feeling when I was prepared, and it’s just like that,” he said. “You feel really, really prepared, and you feel really good about it and you don’t worry too much about it. But again, it’s unpredictable.”
He also made sure to emphasize that the Packers take into the account the character of the men they bring into the organization.
“Again, the unpredictability is real, but … we take a lot of pride in the people that we bring into this locker room,” he said. “We’re obviously chasing things that are really big around here and we’ve got a very good football team with some really good guys in that locker room.
“The guys we bring in, to me, need to be the kind of guys that are going to fit into that culture and add to it. So every year, this is an opportunity to do that. The culture of your football team comes from your players, and so that’s a big part of what we’re doing.”
