Sean Clifford

The NFL Draft is about three things: what you need, what you want, and what you get.

In 2023, the Green Bay Packers needed, among other things, a backup quarterback. They needed a backup quarterback because the man who had recently been their backup quarterback had just become their starting quarterback. That man was Jordan Love, who was taking over for Aaron Rodgers, who had emerged from his darkness retreat blessed with the in hindsight startling revelation that he wanted to play for the New York Jets.

The Packers didn’t say so explicitly, but they wanted to get this backup quarterback as cheaply as possible. That’s not especially controversial; nobody wants to devote big resources to a quarterback who, if all goes according to plan, isn’t going to play. If you find yourself in the market for a backup quarterback, you just simply don’t want to spend all that much. That ruled out free agency, where the Packers likely would have been bringing in a veteran who, if he was any good, could have been seen as a competitor to their first-year starter, and left the Packers to the draft, where they had to be careful to not jump on a quarterback too early, lest they overspend, but not to wait too long, lest they miss out on all the capable backups.

So what did they get?

The first few rounds went essentially according to plan. Three quarterbacks came off the board in the first four picks, which isn’t at all unusual. The Titans nabbed another quarterback in the early second round, taking Will Levis to compete with Malik Willis, whom they’d drafted the year before. The Lions took Hendon Hooker in the third round, but that finished the quarterback movement for the first two days of the draft.

For their part, the Packers had played things pretty much to type. They took athletic edge rusher Lukas Van Ness in the first round, then loaded up on pass catchers with their next three picks, giving their new quarterback plenty of new friends to play with. And with the cupboard pretty well stocked as the draft’s third day began, the Packers spent the 116th pick in the 2023 NFL Draft on defensive lineman Colby Wooden. Assuming nothing unexpected happened, they’d almost certainly have their pick from the remaining quarterbacks.

Well, you know what they say about what happens when you assume.

The Packers may have assumed a decent number of quarterbacks would make it through to their next pick, which was number 149, the 14th pick in the fifth round. Instead, the quarterback market picked up. Fast.

The Saints took one at pick 127, then the Raiders took one at pick 128. Seven picks later, the Raiders greedily took another quarterback at pick 135. Four picks later, the Cardinals nabbed a quarterback of their own, and immediately after that the Browns took another. In the span of 13 picks, five quarterbacks had gone off the board, including two pairs of back to back selections and one instance of a team taking two.

That left the Packers to select Penn State’s Sean Clifford with pick 149 in the 2023 NFL Draft, a pretty rare instance of a pick almost unanimously considered an overreach. To use just one source to illustrate the point, the NFL Mock Draft Database consensus big board for 2023 had Clifford ranked as the 333rd best player in the draft class — a projected undrafted free agent. The Packers had taken him in the fifth round, nearly 200 slots above his consensus ranking.

Did the Packers panic? Did the draft get away from them? Maybe, and maybe not.

They certainly overdrafted Clifford, that seems clear, but the run on quarterbacks may have forced their hand. Overdrafting a player is better than waiting for what might be the correct draft slot and ending up with nothing. So the real question is whether or not they missed out on anyone by picking Clifford when they did.

The Packers picked again 10 spots later, selecting Virginia Tech wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks with pick number 159. That offers an easy check on the Packers’ process: did anyone else go between when they picked Clifford and when they picked Wicks that they would otherwise have selected?

The answer seems like a fairly safe no. Only one other pass catcher was selected: Penn State’s Justin Shorter went to the Bills, but he never played a game for them, and never caught a pass in the NFL despite playing two years with the Raiders. The other picks represent a collection of defensive lineman, offensive linemen, and linebackers that didn’t really fit the Packers’ scheme at the time. The one possible outlier is cornerback Kyu Blue Kelly, but he later ended up in Green Bay for a brief stint as a free agent.

In short: the Packers got their guy, even if they got him in a non-optimal way.

And as far as backup quarterbacks go, Sean Clifford had a decent profile. He didn’t have a big arm, but he was an accomplished player at Penn State and was a good athlete for the position. And ideally, he would never play to begin with.

Ultimately, that’s essentially what happened. In 2023, Clifford only appeared in two games, and none of his snaps were particularly meaningful. In Week 1, he took over for Jordan Love in the fourth quarter after the Packers built a 38-14 lead, playing out the string at Soldier Field (and, unfortunately, fumbling a snap in the process). Then, in Week 17, Clifford again took over for Love with the game well in hand against the Minnesota Vikings. This time, Clifford actually got to throw a pass.

On a 3rd and 6 play, Clifford executed a play action fake and uncorked a 37-yard strike to wide receiver Bo Melton, who had gotten loose in the Vikings secondary. Melton hauled in the pass, giving Clifford his one and only NFL completion.

The following offseason, Clifford would get the kiss of death: the Packers changed his number from 8 to 6 to make way for incoming free agent Josh Jacobs and sending a clear message about what kind of roster priority Clifford was. Then, after a lackluster training camp battle with 2024 draft pick Michael Pratt, the Packers cut Clifford and Pratt loose and traded for Tennessee Titans backup Malik Willis. Clifford came back as a practice squad player, but the writing was on the wall: he was done in Green Bay.

With Willis backing up Jordan Love, Clifford never again appeared in a game. For a time, he filled the role of what the Packers needed, and though he may not have been what they wanted, he was ultimately what they got. But that’s just how things go in the NFL Draft.