The Green Bay Packers didn’t hesitate to make sure they took a wide receiver on the second day of the NFL draft. Armed with two picks in the second round, Green Bay General Manager Brian Gutekunst found a willing trade partner and shipped both second round picks (53, 59) to the Minnesota Vikings to climb up 19 spots to take North Dakota State’s Christian Watson with the second pick in round 2, the 34th overall choice.
Watson came to Green Bay as part of the pre-draft visits and according to Director of Football Operations Milt Hendrickson, it only checked the last couple of boxes that were already covered with his play. With the Bisons, Watson was a two-time FCS All-American regularly competing for the second level national championship. He certainly has all the measurables, standing 6-4 and weighing in at 208 pounds. At the combine he ran a blistering 4.36 in the 40 and has a vertical leap of 28 1/2 inches. In 52 games at NDSU, he caught 105 passes for 2139 yards, averaging 20.4 a catch with 14 touchdowns. He also returned kickoffs and two runback scores. The 2 time FCS All-American did have a knee injury that required surgery in 2019 but still played in the pandemic season of 2020.
Christian is the son of Tim Watson, a safety from Howard University that the Packers drafted in the 6th round back in 1993. While he never played for Green Bay, he did put in five years into an NFL career.
Watson was lightly recruited out of high school in Tampa, Florida. His only offer was from NDSU but once on campus he excelled. Concerns about playing at the FCS level were dispelled at the Senior Bowl when Christian went up against top flight major college football competition and according to Hendrickson, “he blew it out of the water.”
In a conference call, Watson said he’s very excited to join the Packers and play with Aaron Rodgers.
“I know he’ll be hard on me,” Watson said, “but I’m ready to take it and get to work.”
The Packers were in dire need of a receiver heading into this weekend having traded Davante Adams and losing Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Equanimeous St. Brown to free agency. After watching the top 6 wide receivers come off the board in the middle of round one Thursday night, Gutekunst bolstered his defense with two Georgia players, linebacker Quay Walker and defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt.
Having the overnight and all day to ponder their options to get that coveted receiver with two picks late in the second round, Gutekunst pulled the trigger on a big leap to get Watson and it won’t be long before he finds out if that leap of faith will be rewarded.
