Ray Lewis was 1 pick away from being a Green Bay Packer

According to former Packers scout Eliot Wolf, the team was ready to make him the 27th pick of the 1996 draft. Unfortunately, he was drafted 26th.

It’s not often that the name of a Green Bay Packers front office member, outside of the general manager, is recognizable to the fan base. A major exception to that rule, during his time with the Packers, was Eliot Wolf — who spent the 2004 through 2017 seasons with the team.

The son of Ron Wolf, the former Green Bay general manager who brought the team a Super Bowl during the 1996 season, was tabbed as a potential Ted Thompson successor up until Brian Gutekunst filled those shoes in 2018. Following the team’s decision to elect Gutekunst as their new general manager that year, Wolf decided to leave for Cleveland (2018-2019) and eventually landed in New England (2020-present).

Now serving as the “de facto” general manager and director of scouting for the New England Patriots, it appears that Wolf has the inside track to becoming the Patriots’ full-time general manager — as several outside candidates are turning down opportunities to interview with New England for their opening. The assumption is that Wolf is going to get that job and that the “search” the Patriots are running is just for show to comply with the NFL’s hiring rules.

In what was probably a light public relations move, Wolf sat down with ESPN’s Adam Schefter this week for a podcast, which touched on his father’s time running the Packers’ personnel department. In the podcast, he brought up one particular player that Green Bay nearly landed: linebacker Ray Lewis. According to Wolf, his father was ready to take him with the 27th overall pick of the 1996 draft.

Instead, the Baltimore Ravens picked him one slot earlier, leading to the Packers’ selection of USC offensive tackle John Michels with their first-round pick in 1996. Lewis went on to make 10 All-Pro teams and 13 Pro Bowls. Michels, who did make the cut on the 1996 all-rookie team, only ever started 14 games in Green Bay and never played an NFL game after his second season, due to repeated knee injuries.

This is what Wolf said he remembered about the draft room in 1996:

There was some disappointment because they actually had Ray on the phone. They were talking to Ray, and Baltimore was still on the clock.

…

They thought Ray was one of the best players in the draft. I mean, there were games where Ray had like 20 tackles. I know that’s easy to say now. He’s one of the best linebackers of all time. You know, first-ballot Hall-of-Famer and all that. He was kind of seen as an undersized middle linebacker back in the day. He wasn’t what we know as Ray Lewis now.

If you want to hear the full clip or listen to the full podcast, you can find it linked below in Schefter’s tweet.