10 best first-round picks in Green Bay Packers history

The 1972 NFL defensive rookie of the year, a two-time Pro Bowl selection and a first-team All-Pro in 1978, Buchanon might have been a Pro Football Hall of Famer if not for the career-altering broken left leg he suffered in October 1973. After helping the Packers to the NFC Central division title in 1972, the leg injury — in which Buchanon fractured both the tibia and fibula — was considered career threatening at the time, but Buchanon bounced back to play nine more solid seasons in the NFL — five more in Green Bay and four in San Diego. But those who watched him before his injury will always wonder just how good he might have been.

With a high-knee running style and a punishing approach, Brockington was the first running back in NFL history to rush for at least 1,000 yards in each of his first three seasons. He fell short of 1,000 yards in his fourth season, but he still ran for 883 yards with five touchdowns while setting career highs in receptions (43) and receiving yards (314). Half of a dynamic backfield tandem with MacArthur Lane, Brockington’s production suffered after Lane was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs after the 1974 season and Bart Starr took over as head coach, replacing Dan Devine and changing the Packers’ offensive system.

With legendary guard Jerry Kramer finally having earned his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction, Gillingham, a Madison native, is now arguably the greatest Packers player not in the Hall. Drafted to eventually replace Lombardi Era greats Fuzzy Thurston and Kramer, Gillingham was a man ahead of his time as an early adopter of the value of weightlifting. He was a backup as a rookie and earned his first Super Bowl ring; after Thurston retired after the 1966 season, Gillingham moved into the starting lineup and earned his second Super Bowl ring. Despite coach Devine’s ill-advised decision to move him to defensive tackle midway through his career, Gillingham ended up being a six-time All-Pro and four-time Pro Bowl selection during his 10-year career.

In a rare move in 2009, Packers general manager Ted Thompson traded back up into the first round to take Matthews, a third-generation NFL player who’d seen limited action at USC for much of his career. But his football bloodlines showed through and he enters his 10th NFL season having been selected to six Pro Bowls while holding the franchise’s all-time record for sacks with 80. But his most memorable play has to be the fumble he forced during Super Bowl XLV, when the Pittsburgh Steelers had captured the momentum. The Packers might not have won their 13th title without it.

The Packers have had plenty of really good wide receivers over the past three decades during their renaissance, but the best of the bunch — and the one whose truncated career inspires lots of what-ifs — was Sharpe. Before his career-ending neck injury, Sharpe never missed a game in his seven seasons in Green Bay, catching 595 passes for 8,134 yards and 65 touchdowns in only 112 games. Chosen by GM Tom Braatz and the personnel staff that preceded Ron Wolf & Co., Sharpe led the NFL in receptions three times, in receiving yards once and in touchdowns twice, including his NFL-leading and Packers single-season franchise record 18 TDs in 1994. The brevity of his career appears to be the only thing keeping him from enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

A five-time all-pro, five-time Pro Bowl selection and member of the 1960s all-decade team and NFL’s 50th anniversary team, not only was Adderley a great cover corner in his heyday, his speed and coverage skills would have translated well to today’s game and he’d probably have been a star now just like he was then. Inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1980, teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Bart Starr once called Adderley “the greatest cornerback to ever play the game.” He’ll get no argument here.

He could get after the quarterback, set the edge against the run and cover tight ends. There wasn’t anything Robinson couldn’t do on defense. A two-way player in college at Penn State before joining the Packers immediately after the Nittany Lions’ Gator Bowl appearance (a game in which he was the MVP), Robinson went to three Pro Bowls, helped the Lombardi Era Packers to their back-to-back victories in the first two Super Bowls and was finally elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2013 as a seniors committee nominee. Some, including former Packers defensive tackle and defensive coach Dave Hanner, believed he was better than the great Ray Nitschke. "I know people think I'm crazy,” Hanner once famously said, “but if you had to pick between Nitschke and Dave Robinson, I'd take Dave Robinson."

For all of Lofton's talent — he was named All-Pro four times and broke Don Hutson's team record of 488 career receptions, finishing with 530 — he found himself on some of the Packers’ most mediocre teams. The Packers went just 59-75-3 during Lofton's career in Green Bay, and he wound up burnishing his Pro Football Hall of Fame résumé with the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Raiders. But from the moment he arrived at training camp as a rookie, quarterback Lynn Dickey knew the Packers had someone special.

The Golden Boy, as Hornung was famously known, was also the man who made the famed Lombardi Sweep go. The legendary coach called him “the greatest player I ever coached" and "the best all-around back ever to play football" because he did everything during that era as a runner, passer and kicker. And while Jim Taylor carried more frequently than Hornung did when they shared the Packers backfield, it was Hornung who usually toted the rock on the power sweep.

Imagine what it must have been like for Ted Thompson, in his first year as the Packers general manager, getting ready to make his first-ever pick in the NFL draft, to watch Rodgers tumble down the draft and remain on the board at No. 24. With Brett Favre still on his roster, Thompson’s first pick would define him — and set the Packers with back-to-back Pro Football Hall of Fame-caliber quarterbacks. As excruciating as Rodgers’ 4 1/2-hour green room wait must have been at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, his remarkable career is proof positive that good things really do come to those who wait. Set to enter his 18th NFL season and 15th as the Packers' starting quarterback, Rodgers endured the rocky transition from Favre during the infamous Summer of 2008, delivered a Super Bowl XLV championship in 2010 and won four NFL MVPs (2011, 2014, 2020 and 2021) along the way. He’s also insisted that he intends to play into his 40s, which means at least another two years with this 39th birthday looming in December.

But it all began on April 24, 2005 — with Thompson having the guts to pick a player that no one ahead of the Packers in the draft wanted that year and a player who wasn’t going to help the 2005 team holding a clipboard behind football’s ultimate ironman.

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