The Packers-type offensive linemen in the 2024 NFL Draft class

If you’re a Green Bay Packers draftnik, you know that the team has a perceived set of guardrails for offensive line prospects. Since 2007, all but one of their offensive line selections in the top 140 picks of the first four rounds of the draft have had a tackle background — with the exception being true center Josh Myers. Over the same time period, all but one (Sean Rhyan) offensive lineman they’ve drafted in that range has also been able to record at least a 4.75-second short shuttle and 7.77-second three-cone drill.

What does this mean? The team wants versatile offensive linemen who at least have college experience as bookends and hit a baseline level of short-area quickness with their agility drills. The result? The Packers have been able to steal players, particularly in the fourth round, like David Bakhtiari, T.J. Lang, J.C. Tretter, Josh Sitton and Zach Tom via the draft.

So which players in the 2024 draft class fit the Packers’ mold on the offensive line? Well, answering that question brings us to two narratives: the offensive linemen who are expected to go in the top 40 and those who will be drafted outside of that.

The top 40

• 3 “Packers-type” offensive linemen
• 1 disqualified player (Jackson Powers-Johnson)
• 7 non-testers

According to the consensus draft board, 11 offensive linemen are expected to come off the board in the top 40 picks. Only three of them ever ran a short area agility drill, though, as there seems to be a new trend among top draft picks to not run at all during the pre-draft process. Because of this, I wouldn’t advise treating a lack of test, specifically for these players, as a disqualification.

The players who ran, and passed the Packers’ thresholds, were Notre Dame’s Joe Alt, Duke’s Graham Barton and Oklahoma’s Tyler Guyton. Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson would not qualify as a “Packers-type” offensive lineman, as he never played tackle at the college level. The college tackles who simply never tested were Oregon State’s Taliese Fuaga, Penn State’s Olu Fashanu, Alabama’s JC Latham, Washington’s Troy Fautanu, Georgia’s Amarius Mims, Arizona’s Jordan Morgan and BYU’s Kingsley Suamataia. In my opinion, based on their film, it’s doubtful that any of these athletic tackles would flunk the Packers’ short-area agility thresholds.

Outside of the top 40

• 8 “Packers-type” offensive linemen
• 23 disqualified players
• 4 non-testers

Beyond the players who are expected to be drafted inside the first 40 picks of the draft, the story of the offensive line class is very different. Of the 35 offensive linemen who are ranked from 41st to 250th in the class on the consensus draft board, all but four ran their agility drills during the pre-draft process. The non-testers, for the most part, are comprised of players who couldn’t run due to injury.

Unlike the players who are expected to be top 40 picks, though, most of these players were disqualified as “Packers-type” players either because they didn’t have a tackle background or because they could not hit the short area drill thresholds. After the top 40 picks, here are the offensive linemen to highlight due to the Packers’ nearly decade-long draft trends: Kansas State’s Cooper Beebe, Houston’s Patrick Paul, Kansas’ Dominick Puni, Notre Dame’s Blake Fisher, Washington’s Roger Rosengarten, Wisconsin’s Tanor Bortolini, TCU’s Brandon Coleman and South Carolina’s Nick Gargiulo.

“Packers-type offensive linemen”

If you’re wondering which positions the qualifying players have played at the college level, the table above lays out that information. The bright yellow Xs signify where a player has played a significant amount of snaps. The paler yellow Xs signify where a player has played a limited number of snaps during his college career. The number on the far left is where a player is ranked on the consensus draft board as of April 8th.

As you can see, the pool of “Packers type” offensive linemen falls off quickly after the top 100, as most tackles with the short-area quickness that Green Bay typically demands generally get selected in the first three rounds of the draft.

Based on the draft history of the franchise, I would bet that if the Packers do select offensive linemen in the first four rounds of this month’s draft, it’s either a player who is featured in the table above or one of the top-40 prospects who chose not to run during the pre-draft process — as their short area quickness is one reason for them being considered top draft choices in the first place.