The Packers used their first-round pick in the 2026 NFL draft last year, in the trade for Micah Parsons. In the second round, the Packers finally made a pick.
With the 52nd overall pick, the Packers selected South Carolina cornerback Brandon Cisse.
Cisse has good speed and showed off impressive leaping ability at the Scouting Combine, and the Packers think he’s going to be able to match up with NFL wide receivers.
Green Bay will have high hopes that Parsons and Cisse are two big pieces of their defense for years to come.
The Packers and wide receiver Jayden Reed have agreed to a three-year contract extension worth $50.25 million in new money, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports.
The deal includes $20 million guaranteed.
Reed, who turns 26 next week, was entering the final year of his rookie deal. He was scheduled to make a $1.729 million base salary with a $2.285 million salary cap hit.
The Packers made Reed a second-round pick in 2023, the same draft that they made Dontayvion Wicks a fifth-round choice. In 2022, the team drafted Christian Watson in the second round and Romeo Doubs in the fourth, and last year, the Packers took Matthew Golden in the first round and Savion Williams in the third.
The Packers are now building around Reed, Watson, Golden and Williams, as Doubs and Wicks departed this offseason.
Reed played only seven games last season, breaking his collarbone in Week 2, and he made 19 catches for 207 yards and a touchdown.
The Packers don’t have a first-round pick on Thursday night, but General Manager Brian Gutekunst gave a little hint about what direction they’ll be going on Friday and Saturday.
Cornerback was a big enough need late last season that Gutekunst claimed Trevon Diggs off of waivers from the Cowboys, but he was released in January after appearing in two games for the team. They signed Benjamin St-Juste last month to go with Keisan Nixon and Carrington Valentine, but Gutekunst said this week that the team needs to add more bodies to the mix as they head toward training camp.
“Some of our young guys, I’m interested to see with our new coaching staff how they adapt to what we’re going to ask them to do,” Gutekunst said, via the team’s website. “But we do need to add some numbers there.”
The Packers’ highest current pick is No. 52 and they have seven other picks that can be used to address corner and other areas before the draft is over.
The Packers lost their backup quarterback, Malik Willis, to the Dolphins in free agency.
They have Desmond Ridder and Kyle McCord on the depth chart behind Jordan Love. The Packers, though, could come out of this weekend with another quarterback.
Bill Huber of SI.com reports that Virginia Tech’s Kyron Drones and Texas Tech’s Behren Morton were the only quarterbacks to take top-30 pre-draft visits with the Packers. Both are projected as undrafted free agents.
Drones spent his first two seasons at Baylor before transferring to Virginia Tech. In three years with the Hokies he completed 58.3 percent of his passes for 5,566 yards and 44 touchdowns. He rushed for 1,798 yards and 20 touchdowns, giving him 7,364 total yards and 64 total touchdowns.
Morton played all five seasons at Texas Tech, starting 45 games. He completed 62.8 percent of his passes for 8,989 yards with 71 touchdowns and 28 interceptions. Morton ran for only 188 yards but seven touchdowns on 45 carries.
The Packers traded receiver Dontayvion Wicks to the Eagles earlier this month, receiving a 2026 fifth-round pick and a 2027 sixth-round pick in exchange for the receiver.
In his pre-draft press conference on Tuesday, Packers General Manager Brian Gutekunst framed the deal as one that should work out well for Wicks and Green Bay for different reasons. With several talented players at receiver on the Packers’ roster, Wicks may have had trouble breaking through that group for a definite future with the franchise.
“It’s always tough to move off of a player that you feel is as good as Dontayvion was for us,” Gutekunst said. “I think he’s got a really bright career ahead of him. The situation we were kind of in with the amount of players we had in that room, what we’re probably going to do in the future, him being in the last year of his contract, it just made a little bit of sense. This year, coming out of the ’22 draft class, I think we were lucky enough to have retained a bunch of those guys. But a bunch of those guys signed elsewhere this year, too — we’re probably going to get compensatory picks for those players. I don’t know for sure if we’re going to be able to do that moving forward next year and the year after.
“So, the ability to get two picks for a player that we weren’t sure exactly how he was going to fit into our future plans, it just made a lot of sense. And I think it was good for us, and I think it’s going to be good for Dontayvion, too, I think he’ll see his opportunities increase there as well.”
Without Wicks, the Packers currently have Christian Watson, Jayden Reed, Matthew Golden, Savion Williams, Skyy Moore, Jakobie Keeney-James, Isaiah Neyor, and Will Sheppard on their roster at wideout.
Additionally, Gutekunst noted that the picks the team received for Wicks should help with flexibility for this week’s draft.
“Every G.M. wants as many as you can [have], not only because of the players you can select, but the ability to move,” Gutekunst said. “You never like giving them up, but if there’s a player in front of you that you know you’re going to acquire, it makes it a little bit easier. So, yeah, I think we sit with eight right now. We’re looking at 11-plus for next year. So, whether it’s in this year’s draft, next year’s, the ability to move around to acquire the types of players we want to acquire, you have to have those picks to do that.”
Wicks caught 30 passes for 332 yards with two touchdowns for the Packers in 2025. In his 46 career games since being selected in the fifth- round of the 2023 draft, Wicks has caught 108 passes for 1,328 yards with 11 TDs.
