GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The Green Bay Packers might as well have put a flashing neon sign above the "safeties" column of their draft board entering the 2014 NFL draft. Nowhere else on the roster was there such a glaring area of need.

Having lost three-time Pro Bowler Nick Collins -- a still-ascending player who, according to coach Mike McCarthy, was on a Pro Football Hall of Fame trajectory -- to a career-ending neck injury in September 2011, the Packers had tried just about everything in an effort to replace him. Everything, of course, except spend a high draft pick on the position.

They’d shifted Charles Woodson, their best playmaker on that side of the ball, to safety in the base defense to open the 2012 season. They’d given meaningful snaps to seven different players opposite their other starter, Morgan Burnett, over the 46 regular-season games that followed Collins’ injury. They’d started M.D. Jennings, a player whom they would later deem unworthy of a restricted free-agent qualifying offer, 26 times over the 2012 and 2013 seasons. And they’d used a Day 3 pick on a safety in both the 2012 (Jerron McMillian, fourth round) and 2013 (Micah Hyde, fifth round) drafts.

But it wasn’t until Packers general manager Ted Thompson used the 21st overall pick in the 2014 draft on Alabama safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix that the gaping hole was filled. And after selecting Clinton-Dix, Thompson was reluctant to admit the pick was -- at least in part -- based on need.

“When it came time for our pick, we felt like [Clinton-Dix] was the best player on the board and the most skilled. And at the same time, we were looking to maybe add a safety if we could,” Thompson explained then. “I’ve said this over and over, I didn’t go into this draft trying to address need. That’s what we don’t do. If the perception is that we relieved a need, that’s fine, but that’s not how we view our team.”

Fast forward two years. Clinton-Dix has established himself as one of the league’s up-and-coming safeties, having made the Year 1-to-Year 2 jump McCarthy seeks. Clinton-Dix led the Packers in tackles last season (117) while intercepting two passes and registering three sacks.

And now, as the Packers enter the 2016 NFL draft, inside linebacker is the new safety.

After playing their biggest playmaker and edge rusher, Clay Matthews, on the inside (and out of position) for the past season and a half, McCarthy insists Matthews will move back outside in 2016. Nate Palmer, who started 10 games last season, was released earlier this month.

That leaves Sam Barrington, an opening-day starter who missed the remainder of the 2015 season with a foot injury that required surgery, and second-year man Jake Ryan, who as a rookie fourth-round pick replaced Palmer in the starting lineup late last season.

In his annual pre-draft news conference Wednesday, Thompson confessed that there’s some wiggle room in his draft-the-best-player-available approach. With the way the Packers have set their draft boards going back to Pro Football Hall of Fame GM Ron Wolf, need has always been something of a tiebreaker, a deciding factor between two players carrying the same grade.

“You can be in a position where this [player] solves Problem A on our roster, but he's also the best player available,” Thompson said. “You can be in a position and get lucky where you can address both, but if it comes to a point or the other, I would prefer to take the best player available.”

That doesn’t mean the Packers, who’ll pick 27th in the first round, will find an inside linebacker worthy of that pick. Alabama’s Reggie Ragland is the only consensus first-round pick at the position, and he isn’t expected to be on the board when the Packers go on the clock.

But it’s safe to assume Thompson is more than just “looking to maybe add” an inside linebacker like he said he was at safety two years ago, and that may explain why he didn’t seem overly concerned about any roster uncertainty Wednesday.

“We’re not playing anybody tomorrow. I hope not,” Thompson said. “I think there are places on our roster where we’re relatively thin when looking at it from a 90-man roster standpoint. But we have a number of guys who were on the team before this spring and will be on the team going forward.”