NFL Draft 2011: Green Bay Packers Must Draft To Avoid a Super Bowl Hangover

Usually, teams that win the Super Bowl have been put together in such a way that they are void of many needs on the roster.

In order to be a champion, you have to have a proper amount of talent, depth and role players to make it through a grueling season and playoff run.

In the case of the Green Bay Packers, we saw them overcome an incredible amount of injuries to key players, and they still had enough depth to win it all.

Now, even though the Packers are Super Bowl champions, it doesn’t mean that they have everything that they need.

Hopefully they plan on being a team that continues to contend for championships for years to come, but if that's to be the case, they are going to need to keep replenishing.

I think it is important for Packers fans to realize the importance of the 2011 NFL draft.

To win back-to-back Super Bowls is a near impossible feat to accomplish, and sometimes the defending Super Bowl champion doesn’t even make the playoffs that next year.

Many people call this the Super Bowl hangover.

This is something that the Packers are going to have to battle all throughout 2011, and the first punch in the fight has to be thrown in the draft.

Head coach Mike McCarthy is going to have to know and understand that there is going to be a natural tendency to loosen up a bit as a team.

Naturally his players, especially the younger ones, are going to come back to the season (assuming there will be one) loose and confident. Perhaps they may be too confident.

Overconfidence seems to be a key factor in the hangover, and it makes sense.

You spent the whole season before battling and overcoming and eventually reaped the benefits of being the best among the best. The celebration that came along with winning the Super Bowl is perhaps unrivaled in its splendor, and one would be incredibly naive to think that it doesn’t progress into the summer.

Some would argue that it actually spills on over into the next season, and that is where we have seen teams fall apart.

Part two of the hangover is where the draft is going to become so vital.

Players will have a natural tendency to lose a little bit of their edge; after all, they’ve gotten what they wanted, right?

I’m not saying that the 2011 Packers are going to be unmotivated or will not want to win another Super Bowl. All I am saying is that there will be a natural loss of that drive to win it. It’s going to become a little bit harder to motivate yourself during the grind of the season.

Hunger for the championship literally willed this team along last season. They had to win six straight games to capture the Super Bowl. Two of them were just to make the playoffs as a wild card and many of them were against favorites.

Will the 2011 Packers be able to have that same drive and hunger now that they’ve won it all?

This draft will be so important because Ted Thompson and crew will have to not only draft for needs, they are going to draft for want—not players that they want, but rather players that have a want to.

If the Packers want to continue their winning ways, they are going to have to keep the organization stocked up with young and hungry players. A player that is fighting to get their first Super Bowl will undoubtedly motivate players who have already experienced winning one.

They say that winning is contagious, and I believe that is true.

But I believe that the desire to win is even more contagious, and that is what the Packers need to maintain in order to avoid the dreaded Super Bowl hangover.

Like any good hangover, it’s going to plague the Packers all season long, so they will have to fight it.

Drafting a player with the desire to win is the first step.