2026 Packers roster ranking, 40-31: Green Bay's upside bets at key positions

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 order the players based on ability relative to their respective positions rather than weighing the importance 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’s slate features players with perhaps the widest range of outcomes on the entire roster, including some at key positions.

40. Daniel Whelan

Position: punter
How acquired: street free agent (2023)

When now-former coordinator Rich Bisaccia first arrived in Green Bay, he pushed the team to sign multiple specialists and core special teamers to the roster to bolster his units. That list included a punter, veteran Pat O’Donnell, who received a two-year, $4 million deal, a sizable investment for the position.

O’Donnell didn’t see the back half of that contract. In the 2023 offseason, he lost a head-to-head battle with a virtually unknown Irish punter who had never appeared in a regular-season NFL game: Daniel Whelan.

In the three seasons since, Whelan has outgrown his underdog story. His 47.8 yards per punt currently ranks as the all-time Packers career record among qualifiers, and his 51.7 yards per punt last season led the NFL (and set a team single-season record). Those figures look even wilder when factoring in the adverse weather at Lambeau Field late in the year. Accordingly, it came as little surprise when Green Bay rewarded him with a multiyear deal worth $6.2 million.

T-38. Kitan Oladapo

Position: safety
How acquired: fifth-round draft pick (2024)

Speaking of those ostensibly brought to Green Bay at Bisaccia’s behest, Kitan Oladapo has grown into a core special-teams player over the past two seasons. In 2025, he appeared on almost exactly half of the Packers’ special-teams snaps, seeing action on every unit except field-goal kicks. That utility, along with his cost-controlled rookie contract, put him in a strong position to make the roster again despite the change at special-teams coordinator.

For Oladapo to take the next step, he’ll need to prove he can regularly handle defensive snaps in meaningful games. To date, he has played only 20 of those snaps outside of Week 18 matchups. While he doesn’t necessarily need to add that to his résumé to have a long NFL career, demonstrating competence as a backup safety would bolster his job security.

Perhaps under new DC Jonathan Gannon, Oladapo will get that chance. Gannon’s defenses with the Arizona Cardinals regularly featured three safeties playing together, creating more opportunities for a player with Oladapo’s skill set. While he won’t surpass Xavier McKinney, Evan Williams, or Javon Bullard on the depth chart, one injury could press Oladapo or another safety into action.