2025 Packers roster ranking, 60-51: Young draft picks and recent additions pushing for playing time
The Leap ranks the Green Bay Packers' 90-man roster in order of player caliber.
With the Green Bay Packers on break until training camp and the personnel essentially frozen for the foreseeable future, The Leap will use this time to reveal its annual 90-man roster rankings.
Our methodology: We ordered the players based on ability relative to their respective positions rather than the value of those positions. Put another way, this exercise prioritizes the "best" players, not necessarily the ones who offer the most "value." That means the starting quarterback doesn't have to top the list because of the position he plays.
Each edition of the 90-man roster ranking will include a batch of roughly 10 players. Due to voting ties, some batches will feature slightly more or less.
Today, we take a look at the guys most likely fighting for the final 53-man roster spots, a group that features players who could either be cut or push for starting roles by the time the regular season rolls around.
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60. Kalen King
Position: cornerback
How acquired: seventh-round draft pick (2024)
If one needed more evidence that “draft steals” — players drafted much lower than their consensus rankings — are usually fool’s gold, look no further than Kalen King. Projected by some as a potential fourth-round type of player, King didn’t make the opening-day roster, didn’t see a gameday elevation from the practice squad until Week 14, and his current Pro Football Reference page features only his combine numbers (which aren’t great).
For a player who drew first-round buzz at one point in his collegiate career, King has fizzled so far in the NFL. On the other hand, Green Bay didn’t aggressively add bodies to the cornerback room this offseason, and GM Brian Gutekunst recently spoke about the confidence the team has in the young players at the position.
That includes King, at least for now.
59. Kadeem Telfort
Position: offensive lineman
How acquired: undrafted free agent (2023)
Green Bay loves projects with enormous frames and upside. Kadeem Telfort certainly fits that bill. But the playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles showed he’s far from ready to meaningfully compete to play for the Packers front. He’s 6-foot-7 and 322 pounds, which would be much bigger than they’d normally draft, but that’s how they’ve liked their fringe roster linemen with Gutekunst at the controls.
The combination of the playoff game with recent drafts featuring multiple high offensive linemen selections reveals Green Bay’s satisfaction with this particular project. There is a numbers problem from Telfort, and his lack of development puts him on the wrong side of the cut line for the moment.
58. Sean Clifford
Position: quarterback
How acquired: fifth-round draft pick (2023)
Most teams carry a quarterback on the practice squad, and Sean Clifford will be that guy for Green Bay, barring injury.
The end.
At least this, there’s not much else to say about Clifford, who resoundingly lost his job to Malik Willis last year. It wasn’t that the former Penn State signal-caller played horribly, but Gutekunst traded for Willis just before the season opened, then Matt LaFleur thrived calling plays for Willis when Jordan Love got hurt at various points throughout the season.
Clifford has an opportunity to retake that job with Willis set to be a free agent in a year, but for now, he’s QB3 with no real chance to change it.
57. Jacob Monk
Position: center
How acquired: fifth-round draft pick (2024)
This is one of the sticking points between me and Jason, both in terms of rankings and how the team feels about Monk. There’s the part where he was taking center snaps with the ones while Elgton Jenkins sat out the spring practices. Still, there’s also the bit about not playing a single offensive snap last year, even as the team shuffled pieces and needed some quality interior offensive line play.
Instead of playing him in the playoff game, they brought back in a guard they’d benched to move Sean Rhyan to center. It was ugly stuff for a fifth-round pick who had a lot of fans in Cheesehead Nation before last year.
I don’t know what to make of Monk at this point, and I’m not sure the Packers do either.
56. Warren Brinson
Position: defensive tackle
How acquired: sixth-round draft pick (2025)
By consensus pre-draft and our roster rankings, Warren Brinson belongs behind Georgia teammate Nazir Stackhouse in draft rankings, though Jason had them as a de facto tie. The Packers disagreed, selecting Brinson before signing Stackhouse in undrafted free agency.
They’re both enormous humans, but Brinson looks more like an old-school five-technique, at 6-foot-5, 310 pounds with an up-the-field style of play. (More on Stackhouse to come). He’s more of a chaos creator, and he has plenty of pedigree that the Packers love as an ex-Bulldog. But it’s hard to create an analog for him based on the current players on the team.
Then again, maybe that’s why Green Bay drafted him: they don’t have anyone quite like him on the roster.
T-54. Ben Sims
Position: tight end
How acquired: waiver claim from Minnesota Vikings (2023)
It may seem weird for a player who has played every game since he joined the Packers to show up this far down the list, but despite Ben Sims’ consistency getting on the field, he hasn’t found consistency creating impact. He has the athletic profile of a tight end capable of generating big plays, but he’s been best utilized as a space player and low red zone threat.
The problem for him is that the Packers have Tucker Kraft and Luke Musgrave for that. What they need is a rugged, blocking tight end to crush it for them on special teams and kick more than a modest amount of ass in the run game out of two two end sets.
We haven’t seen that quite yet, but that doesn’t mean it can’t arrive; tight ends tend to take time in development.
T-54. Kamal Hadden
Position: cornerback
How acquired: street free agent (2024)
If Kamal Hadden is starting by Week 4, it shouldn’t be surprising. If Kamal Hadden doesn’t make the final 53, it shouldn’t be surprising. That’s quite the variance for a street free agent, but that’s where Hadden finds himself heading into training camp.
Nate Hobbs and Keisean Nixon are no-doubt starters with Carrington Valentine playing CB3 on the boundary, but an injury to Javon Bullard could move Hobbs or Nixon back to the slot, leaving just two regular boundary cornerbacks on the roster with any kind of NFL experience.
Hadden’s athleticism isn’t going to wow anyone, but he’s the ideal size for the position and can make plays in coverage from off or press. There might not be a Packer player with a higher role variance for 2025 than Hadden.
53. Ty’Ron Hopper
Position: linebacker
How acquired: third-round draft pick (2024)
It’s pretty damning to have a third-round pick show up at this point on the list just over a year since he was selected. Hopper barely played last year despite injuries to Quay Walker and Edgerrin Cooper, and his path to getting on the field right now seems solely predicated on his ability to play that third linebacker spot in base packages.
Cooper is a rising star, and Green Bay appears resolute in keeping Walker on a new deal, which leaves Hopper to try and carve out a role as the SAM linebacker. While Isaiah McDuffie isn’t ideally suited to that role physically, he got a contract to stay with the team and did play some there last year.
The Packers tend to give priority to draft picks, but Hopper not making the team wouldn’t be that surprising.
52. Nazir Stackhouse
Position: defensive tackle
How acquired: undrafted free agent (2025)
Yes, it’s a little weird Stackhouse lands here as a UDFA while his drafted teammate falls down the list, but this is my doing, so it feels only fitting that I’d have to explain this decision.
For me, Stackhouse fits a clear role for the Packers. He can slide into the T.J. Slaton role on early downs, eat up blocks with his enormous frame, and free up Kenny Clark to be an early-down pass rusher if need be. Green Bay plays fewer light boxes than they did under Joe Barry, so finding beef in the middle field isn’t as important, but the Packers’ run defense improved significantly last year, thanks in part to T.J. Slaton’s league-leading run-stop win rate.
They need something, and it doesn’t appear Devonte Wyatt or Karl Brooks are going to provide it next to Clark.
51. Donovan Jennings
Position: interior offensive lineman
How acquired: undrafted free agent (2024)
When Donovan Jennings took first-team reps this spring at center, my ears perked up. If Green Bay is going to move on from Elgton Jenkins in a year — something he clearly thinks could happen — Jennings has a chance to grab that starting job. Jennings came to the Packers with a lot of excitement (and a nice UDFA contract to boot), but his inability to stay healthy has scuttled his development.
If he can stay healthy, Jennings has a path to make this team and become a priority backup (maybe even the interior swing?) that leads to a starting role in 2026 and beyond.
Oh, and he could also just not make the team. Are you sensing a trend with this group?
I'll never understand why we let TJ Slaton sign (for peanuts) with another team. We're looking for his replacement, but we let the original walk out the door.