6 Teams under the most pressure to succeed in 2021 NFL Draft
By Tadhg Flynn
The 2021 NFL Draft is fast approaching and the 32 franchises will be finalizing their draft boards. But which teams are feeling the heat to get their picks exactly right?
After a turbulent year for the NFL and the world at large, we’ve reached the quiet before the storm created by the 2021 NFL Draft. Beginning on Thursday, April 29, college prospects will find out which franchise will launch their NFL careers and what situations they will be given to find their feet. Any first-round pick will have talent but how their career turns out depends on the way their franchise both molds their talent and supports their place on the team going forward.
NFL franchises face pressure to find players that change their fortunes heading into every year’s draft and, more often than not, players can land on the wrong team and/or situation. The 2020 NFL season dealt with the pandemic as best it could but the lack of fan attendance and lower income have tightened the belt for franchises.
For the first time in 10 years, teams are facing a shrinking salary cap for the 2021 season. Moreover, varying fan expectations coming from their team’s year have shaped how different franchises have to approach draft night. Multiple restructured front offices are looking to make their mark with their team development.
The combination of all these factors makes 2021 NFL Draft preparation more difficult than ever before. And with that in mind, we’re going to examine the teams that will be under the most pressure to get it right in this year’s draft.
6. Green Bay Packers (No. 29 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft)
The Green Bay Packers have created quite the mess for themselves thanks to the 2020 draft and the continued excellence of Aaron Rodgers. The reigning NFL MVP proved to everyone in the football world that he is still one of the best to ever do it. The Packers lost their most important game of the season, though, in the NFC Championship Game and another chance at Super Bowl glory passed them by. W
ith extremely concrete evidence that the roster only needs small additions instead of a full rebuild, the franchise’s management has a lot of difficult questions to answer.
Green Bay’s front office started to think of the future last April, with Rodgers 36 years old at the time of the 2020 draft. The franchise selected Jordan Love to be his successor and slowly learn the offense developing behind Rodgers. It is a plan the franchise knows well with Rodgers himself learning from the great Brett Favre before taking over the team.
The hiccup in that plan is that present-day Rodgers looks as if he could have 3-5 high-level years left before showing any real decline. There were many talented players available last year that could have made a real difference in the Packers’ conference loss. Small mistakes make huge differences at the highest level.
The cost of selecting Love instead of other talented prospects now creates a pressure cooker every single year for the Packers. It is a self-fueling circle of fan anger and team frustration. Rodgers has never had a top-tier receiver selected in the first round by the Packers in his time with the team. If the team does not back him as reigning MVP, they show that there is no real support for Rodgers long term by the front office.