The Packers return all five starters on the offensive line and will have Barclay and Tretter as primary backups. Thompson should think about adding another OL to the mix to compete for the final spot but there´s no dire need to spend an early pick on the position.
There are several reasons not to be thinking about an OL until the middle rounds.
- All of the OL starters are signed through 2016.
- I regard 4 of the 5 starters as above average players with Bakhtiari being adequate.
- A single injury is covered. Barclay is a proven adequate backup at RT, and can play either G position. Tretter was pegged as the starting center until his most recent injury and he'd have considerable help on either side if Linsley were injured. Bulaga can swing to the left side (as was the plan 2 seasons ago) with Barclay taking RT if Bakhtiari is injured.
Injuries to two starting players in the position group would be problematic given the current roster, but there simply are not enough resources to cover that eventuality with confidence in every position group.
- The Packers have had great success getting linemen out of the middle rounds on down: Sitton in the 4th., Lang in the 4th., Linsley in the 5th., Bakhtiari in the 4th. and Barclay as a UDFA.
The chief exposure in the one-injury scenario is Barclay. Since he's on an "original round" tender as a UDFA, there would be no compensation in the event he signed elsewhere with a team bettering the 1 year / $1.5 mil tender, with the window for such a signing closing after the draft. Lack of compensation eliminates a significant disincentive to improving on the tender. There a couple of reasons this scenario is unlikely. First, he's coming off an ACL. While the Packers may have insight into is rehab progression, others would be more in the dark. Second, he's not highly regarded enough to be targeted as other than a depth player. Third, the Packers could match a competing offer and keep him if push came to shove, especially since that offer would not be significantly more than the tender.
I agree that the Packers could use an 7th./8th. man upgrade to mitigate the damage in a two-injury scenario. We've seen the incumbents for those spots play a little and it has not been pretty. Even Tretter outside the C position (which we haven't even seen him play) is a dubious proposition.
I would look for the Packers to follow the path that has proven successful in the past...draft a college LT in the middle rounds who falls to that spot because he does not project well to the NFL tackle prototype (Lang, Barclay, Tretter and even Bakhtiari). That would be a guy to coach up for interior play, while also having the experience at LT as an emergency fill-in in the two-injury scenario.
This is arguably the strongest position group through the first backup. It's very hard to envision a 1st. through 3rd. round pick allocated to it. The franchise QB is a football player, too. One can't expect to wrap him in bubble paper in every conceivable scenario. He survived the loss of Bulaga and the Newsome/Sherrod turnstile. He'll have to do it again under an unlikely scenario.
