The Green Bay Packers’ 2018 offseason saw a significant brain drain in the team’s front office. After Ted Thompson rode off into the sunset as a glorified area scout Dave Robinson Jersey White , Brian Gutekunst got the vacant general manager job and Eliot Wolf departed for the Cleveland Browns. Alonzo Highsmith went with him, as the team was deprived of two of its longtime personnel men in Gutekunst’s first year on the job.Today, however, an excellent scout with deep Packers ties is back on the market. The Raiders have reportedly fired general manager Reggie McKenzie, who was never going to survive a power struggle with Jon Gruden for long. Gruden’s ten-year contract and significant sway over personnel decisions made that arrangement untenable from the beginning, and the surprise is only that it took until now for owner Mark Davis to release McKenzie of his duties. On Sunday, a report emerged that McKenzie was expected to leave after the season, but according to Ian Rapoport, the team has elected to move on from him immediately.Now, it’s time for Gutekunst and team president Mark Murphy to make a phone call and get him back to Green Bay.McKenzie served in the Packers’ front office for nearly two decades Womens Dean Lowry Jersey , starting as a scout in 1994 and working his way up to director of player personnel. In 2012, the Raiders hired McKenzie as their GM, and he purged a roster that was deep in salary cap hell and built it up to a high-water mark of 12-4 in 2016. That year, he won the NFL’s Executive of the Year award, largely due to that turnaround.Interestingly, Gutekunst held the director of player personnel job in Green Bay before he took over as GM. He and McKenzie worked together in the Packers’ front office for 13 years from 1999 through 2011, and should therefore have a relationship already. Currently, the Packers have co-directors of player personnel in Jon-Eric Sullivan and John Wojciechowski. However, the team could easily bring McKenzie in as a consultant for the remainder of 2018 before reshuffling the deck in the offseason to clearly define roles and responsibilities moving forward. McKenzie is a shrewd talent evaluator, and he helped identify several exceptional draft picks in his tenure in Green Bay. The Browns should also be interested in McKenzie Marquez Valdes-Scantling Jersey , since he worked with Wolf and current Cleveland GM John Dorsey in Green Bay as well. Hopefully the prospect of returning to Titletown would lead him back to the shores of Lake Michigan rather than Lake Erie. With three of APC’s favorite prospects gone, APC still finds a top pass-rusher for the Packers."The 2019 SB Nation Writer’s Mock Draft is underway, and we at Acme Packing Company are representing the Green Bay Packers once again in this annual tradition. This year, we have a pair of first-round picks, sitting at 12 and 30 overall. Today, we reveal our first pick for the Packers in this year’s draft.In this scenario, a few of APC’s favorite targets for the Packers have already come off the board. Houston defensive tackle Ed Oliver was gone early, landing with the Buccaneers at the 5th pick. Florida State pass-rusher Brian Burns ended up in Detroit with the eighth pick while T.J. Hockenson, the Iowa tight end, went one pick later to Buffalo at nine.A quarterback Josh Jones Jersey White , Drew Lock, went off the board at 10, however, followed by Michigan linebacker Devin Bush at 11. So, with the 12th overall pick in the 2019 SB Nation Writers’ Mock Draft, Acme Packing Company has selected:Montez Sweat, outside linebacker, Mississippi StateThe Packers would be ecstatic to find one of the pass rushers in the draft’s top tiers available with the 12th pick in this scenario and, given the other players who have come off the board, they should sprint to the podium faster than Montez Sweat’s 4.41-second 40-yard dash. Yes Aaron Jones Jersey White , the team bolstered its pass rush in free agency with the additions of Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith, drastically lessening the need to land one of the top edge rushers in the draft. In fact, these signings plus the adds of Adrian Amos and Billy Turner free up the Packers to truly stick to their best value available strategy. Interestingly, Sweat is taking his official visit to Green Bay today.However, on this board, Sweat is absolutely that guy — plus, you can never have too many pass-rushers. Adding a tremendous athlete like Sweat to this rotation will allow all of these players to stay a bit more fresh as a long season wears on, while hopefully sacrificing little if anything in terms of talent when one of the Smiths needs a breather. He has experience rushing both standing up and with a hand in the dirt, and he may well be asked to do both in Green Bay. Plus, Za’Darius Smith is already expected to rush from the interior on passing downs http://www.packerslockerroom.com/authentic-ray-nitschke-jersey , so that provides a great pathway to getting all three acquisitions on the field at once. Sweat’s ridiculous athletic ability and production just make him too good to pass up here.Green Bay still has needs on offense and at safety, but the board — and the fact that the Packers have an extra first-round pick at 30 — set up to to fill those holes later on. When you can draft a true impact player who can make life difficult for opposing quarterbacks, you do it.APC broke down the pick on a mini-episode of The APC Podcast this week, where you can hear Tex Western discussing the board and the selection with Zach Rapport:Click here to follow along with the SB Nation Mock as it continues on, and check back in next week to see what happens with pick number 30.
