Green Bay Packers: Isaac Yiadom trade opens up options at cornerback

The Green Bay Packers traded for cornerback Isaac Yiadom, ending the Josh Jackson era and opening up options in the secondary. 

Especially with how they performed in the NFC Championship Game to end their season, the Green Bay Packers were clearly interested in reshaping their cornerback group coming into the 2021 NFL season. That’s why they used their first-round pick on Eric Stokes and then dipped into the corner pool again with a mid-round selection of Shemar Jean-Charles. Green Bay also re-signed Kevin King, which is sure to elicit mixed feelings from fans.

Now, the Packers have made another move. On Friday, Green Bay made a trade to require 2018 third-round pick Isaac Yiadom from the Giants, first reported by FanSided’s Matt Lombardo. In return, New York will get cornerback Josh Jackson.

It’s no surprise that the Packers sent Jackson away in the trade. He’s seemingly been on and off the block for the past couple seasons as he simply never worked out as Green Bay had intended when they drafted him. Thus, they felt comfortable making the transition from Jackson to Yiadom just to get fresh faces in the mix.

What are the Green Bay Packers getting with Isaac Yiadom?

In three seasons in the NFL, Yiadom has played with the Broncos — the franchise that drafted him — and Giants for one year. And he’s seen the field quite a bit for a young player, appearing in 45 games and actually starting 10 games for the Giants as well. He only has one interception to his credit thus far but does have 12 pass defenses.

With that said, the underlying performance numbers for Yiadom aren’t all that inspiring. He ranked 77th among 121 qualifying cornerbacks last season in PFF grading (subscription required), which admittedly is better than Kevin King graded out. And that was actually his career-high grade.

Yiadom may have been a third-round pick but that’s also a bit misleading. Most called the Broncos selection of the cornerback a reach at the time and that has played out so far in his career. While a solid physical cornerback, Yiadom has lacked the speed and fluidity to hang with fast wide receivers and crafty route-runners so far in his NFL career.

So no, the Packers didn’t trade for a superstar cornerback. At the same time, this could be a net positive for Green Bay. Jackson clearly wasn’t going to play a substantial role for Green Bay as they’ve seen and been underwhelmed by him for years now. For a team that is looking for quality depth behind Jaire Alexander and (hopefully) Stokes, that’s not what they want.

By bringing in Yiadom, they are giving the coaching staff a look at another player who could be a possible depth option. At the very least, it opens some doors in the Green Bay secondary to potentially shake up the rotation and see some different things. Considering they gave up a distressed asset to make the deal, it’s hard to not think this is a net positive, even if Yiadom doesn’t become an impact player.