GREEN BAY — Bo Melton didn’t mind the attention. And he certainly got a kick out of his brother Max’s exasperated phone call on Tuesday after the news broke.

But the Green Bay Packers wide receiver wanted to make one thing crystal clear on Wednesday, one day after creating quite the buzz by working at cornerback during the first practice of the mandatory minicamp — and doing so again on Day 2:

He is still very much a wide receiver. He is not changing positions. He is adding a position to his job description.

“It’s just something that came up. I want to give it a shot,” Melton said after his second day as a two-way practice player. “I’m still a wide receiver. I’m not really transitioning to cornerback. But if it works, it works.”

And while he’d like the equipment staff to put both his usual white No. 80 practice jersey — since all offensive players (except quarterbacks, who wear red) wear white — and a green defensive No. 80 in his locker, he did admit that he was taken aback by all the attention his second-position job generated.

“I turned the phone on [after post-practice meetings on Tuesday] and I was like, ‘Shoot, maybe this is bigger than what I thought,’” Melton confessed.

That much was obvious when his younger brother Max, a cornerback for the Arizona Cardinals, saw the news on social media instead of getting it straight from the cornerback’s — er, wide receiver who’s also trying out cornerback’s — mouth.

“I usually tell him stuff. And if I don’t tell him something, he’s going to blow my phone up,” Melton recounted. “He kind of was shocked I didn’t tell him. So when he saw it, he called me and was like, ‘What the [expletive] are you doing?’

“I had to tell him, ‘Look, man, I can’t tell you everything. But yeah, I’m going to try it out and see how it is.’”

As head coach Matt LaFleur explained a day earlier — in a soliloquy on Melton’s value that included LaFleur saying, “I just love everything about the guy” — the Packers coaches and general manager Brian Gutekunst decided to give Melton a try at corner because of how adept he is in special-teams kickoff and punt coverage. For a wide receiver, he has proven to be a natural tackler.

That’s what prompted LaFleur to ask Melton about giving cornerback a shot after the final organized team activity practice last Thursday. But as it turns out, LaFleur had actually approached Melton with the idea early in the 2023 season, while Melton was on the practice squad and looking to work his way onto the 53-man roster.

Although he eventually did so — after he was the first Packers receiver to register a 100-yard game that season (and did it as a gameday practice-squad call-up) at Minnesota in Week 17 — Melton also knows that in an overcrowded wide receiver room, the more he can do, the better his chances are of sticking around for another season.

While he is one of six receivers on the roster who have played extensively in LaFleur’s offense already — Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks and Malik Heath are the others — the Packers drafted a pair of wideouts (first-round pick Matthew Golden and third-round pick Savion Williams) and also signed Mecole Hardman in free agency.

That means that, despite his value on special teams and his niche as a receiver, nothing is guaranteed. And so far, his defensive back teammates have been impressed with Melton’s versatility.

“For me, it was cool,” safety Evan Williams said. “He’s an athlete, honestly. Seeing him out there, I was watching film last night, and he’s pretty sticky in coverage for his first time out there. Anytime we can get a guy like that who’s just an athlete out there, it’s pretty cool in my opinion for him to be as versatile as he is and play both sides of the ball.”

Added cornerback Carrington Valentine: “Bo’s been out there back pedaling, breaking, stuff like that. He’s been embracing it. I’ve been trying to show him the ropes a little bit. Give him some ‘DB 101.’ But he looks natural to me. [He needs] some fine-tuning, but I like him there.”

That said, Melton said the defensive backs — Valentine in particular — were more than a little surprised when he jumped into their line for individual drills on Tuesday.

Although Melton has been attending both wide receiver and cornerback meetings since then, defensive passing-game coordinator Derrick Ansley had met with him individually leading into that first practice and hadn’t told his other players about Melton’s additional duties.

“I was in the fire quick,” Melton said with a laugh. “I went straight to individual drills and everybody turned and looked at me like, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m with y’all today.’ Carrington was like, ‘Bro, this is crazy!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ And then they saw me move a little bit and I might’ve shocked a few people.”

But when it was suggested to Melton that he might be the Packers’ version of reigning Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, who went to the Jacksonville Jaguars as the No. 2 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft in April, that was where Melton had to draw the line.

At least for now.

“Travis is a different athlete, as everybody knows. He’s a Heisman Trophy winner. I’m not going to compare myself to somebody that’s done that,” said Melton, whose only previous cornerback experience had been in high school and for a handful of practices as a freshman in college at Rutgers before moving to receiver full-time. “But what I will say is, I like to run for days. I’m very versatile. It’s just something they want to look at. I don’t have a problem with it.

“I just try to do what’s asked of me to the best of my ability. That’s just how I was raised, how I was brought up. Somebody asks you to do something, you do it to the best of your ability. You don’t half do it. That’s just how I’ve been since I got here.

“I love playing football. That’s what I love doing. I love making plays, I love my teammates, and that’s how I play ball. I play for them. So at the end of the day, how the ball may fall — special teams, offense, defense — I’m going to be front-and-center.”

​COPYRIGHT 2025 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.