We’ve started our series breaking down the Green Bay Packers’ “core four” special teams units. Generally, the “core four” refers to the punt team, punt return team, kickoff team and kickoff return team, as these units have a greater influence on game day (from a personnel standpoint) and a larger impact on roster construction.

For the most part, all available active offensive linemen and tight ends will see action on the field goal protection unit, starting with the backups and working up to the veteran players. On the field goal block team, the unit usually plays “defense stay” (essentially just the team’s base defensive personnel) and tries to block the kick that way, aside from unique situations like attempting to return a missed field goal.

Earlier this week, we broke down who plays on the Packers’ punt team and why. Now, we’ll take a look at the punt return team, as far as the non-returners go. If you want info on Green Bay’s punt returner race, the best info out before the Packers’ preseason opener against the New York Jets is the team’s depth chart.

Let’s start with the vises/jammers. These players are essentially the cornerbacks on the return unit. Their job is to slow down the gunners/fliers, who line up outside of the numbers on the punt team and try to get to the return man as fast as possible. If you can slow down the gunners/fliers, then that can save you from either a downed punt, fair catch or quick tackle of the returner, as the gunners/fliers are the only players allowed to sprint down the field before the ball is punted at the NFL level.

Cornerback: 4,164 snaps (82 percent)Safety: 704 (14 percent)Receiver: 147 (2.9 percent)Running Back: 60 (1.2 percent)Defensive Tackle: 1 (0.02 percent)

To no one’s surprise, 82 percent of these snaps at the NFL level are played by cornerbacks, and 96 percent of them are played by defensive backs. If you’re wondering why a defensive tackle got out there for a snap…it’s a technicality. The Houston Texans’ Folorunso Fatukasi (bottom of the screenshot below) tried to run on the field against the Indianapolis Colts, decided to run back to the sideline and was unable to make it home before the ball was snapped. Make no mistake, this is a position for skill players.

2024 Packers Player Snap Counts:

CB Corey Ballentine: 45 (33 percent)CB Robert Rochell: 40 (29 percent)CB Carrington Valentine: 23 (17 percent)CB Eric Stokes: 14 (10 percent)CB Kamal Hadden: 7 (5.1 percent)CB Keisean Nixon: 7 (5.1 percent)S Omar Brown: 2 (1.4 percent)

2024 Packers Position Breakdown:

CB: 98.6 percentS: 1.4 percent

As a reminder here, because there are two vises/jammers on the field at one time, Corey Ballentine’s 33 percent of punt return snaps played (between all vises/jammers) means he was on the field for two-thirds of all of the Packers’ punt return snaps. I just wanted to note that on the front end.

Since special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia took over in 2022, Green Bay has used cornerbacks on 87 percent of their vise/jammer reps overall. Of the 50 non-cornerback reps at the position, 45 came from safety Rudy Ford. So, unless Bisaccia really likes a non-cornerback like Ford, think of this as a corner-only position from the Packers’ perspective.

My big question at vise/jammer this year is how converted receiver-turned-cornerback Bo Melton will fare at the position. He’s never played a regular-season snap there, and the Packers need to make up a lot of reps there with their depth players at cornerback. Nate Hobbs and Keisean Nixon probably won’t be playing much special teams after a full drive of defense. The leader in snaps at the position, Ballentine, only recently re-signed with the team. Green Bay lost its second- and fourth-most played players at the position in free agency (Robert Rochell and Eric Stokes), and Carrington Valentine might not be available to start the year because of Hobbs’ meniscus surgery.

The Packers need their backup cornerbacks to be able to play this position this year. If Melton, who played with the first-team defense last practice, can prove that he can do that, that would go a long way toward earning him a roster spot. Going into the preseason, though, we’ve seen little to no snaps of the first-team punt return unit. I’m not ready to make any declarations yet.

Line of Scrimmage/Punt Rush

Next, let’s talk about the punt rushers. Usually, these players are numbered from the outside in, so the edge players would be the “1s” with the “2s” playing inside them, and so on. For our purposes, we’re just going to think about these players as a unit.

These players’ primary job is to block a punt and/or cover their assigned gaps on fakes. They only turn into blockers for the return team once the ball is punted, in the same way the punt team’s core turns into a coverage unit after being protection-first players before the punt.

Linebacker: 4,607 (34 percent)Edge Defender: 2,608 (19 percent)Safety: 1,490 (11 percent)Defensive Tackle: 1,325 (9.9 percent)Tight End: 1,174 (8.8 percent)Running Back: 1,062 (7.9 percent)Receiver: 612 (4.6 percent)Fullback: 250 (1.9 percent)Cornerback: 244 (1.8 percent)Offensive Line: 3 (0.02 percent)

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to skin the cat here. Teams take different approaches, but the main takeaway you want to make here is that league-wide, only 53 percent of the snaps at the line of scrimmage on the punt return team come from linebackers and edge defenders.

2024 Packers Player Snap Counts:

ED Lukas Van Ness: 61ED Kingsley Enagbare: 57ED Arron Mosby: 57LB Ty’Ron Hopper: 53DT Karl Brooks: 48LB Eric Wilson: 47ED Brenton Cox Jr.: 24LB Isaiah McDuffie: 19S Evan Williams: 17S Zayne Anderson: 15TE John FitzPatrick: 11DT Colby Wooden: 9S Javon Bullard: 6LB Edgerrin Cooper: 5DT Devonte Wyatt: 4DT T.J. Slaton: 3DT Kenny Clark: 3S Kitan Oladapo: 2ED Rashan Gary: 2ED Preston Smith: 1

2024 Packers Position Breakdown:

ED: 204 (46 percent)LB: 124 (28 percent)DT: 67 (15 percent)S: 40 (9.0 percent)TE: 11 (2.5 percent)

When comparing the Packers to the NFL average, an important note is that Green Bay has leaned heavily into the edge defender position. Last year, they played edge defenders 2.5 times the NFL average in this spot. This is a pretty new development, too, as Bisaccia’s edge defenders combined for 241 snaps in his first two years with the team and played 204 just last year alone.

Lukas Van Ness and Kingsley Enagbare are defensive ends who have been special teams contributors for their whole career, but it’s also worth mentioning that Arron Mosby has a pretty unique set of skills as a special teamer (more on that later). Combined, those three played 175 punt rush snaps in 2024. Keep that in mind when discussing Brenton Cox Jr., a roster bubble defensive end who only got on the field for 24 punt rush snaps last year and doesn’t contribute on the punt protection team, either. Special teams contributions could be a reason why Green Bay ends up choosing to roster Enagbare and Mosby while letting Cox walk at cutdowns.

The playing of so many edge defenders at the line of scrimmage mostly came at the expense of tight ends’ playing time in 2024. Over Bisaccia’s first two years, tight ends played 151 snaps of punt block. Last year, John FitzPatrick played 11 and the trio of Tucker Kraft, Luke Musgrave and Ben Sims didn’t get on the field at all.

Finally, I want to talk about defensive tackle Karl Brooks, who, like Mosby, has a very unique skill set for his defensive position. Brooks played 48 punt rush snaps compared to 19 for all the other defensive tackles on the Packers’ 2024 roster, which were mostly played out of “defense stay” personnel to combat the chance of a fake punt.

Brooks is the fourth-most played punt rusher in Bisaccia’s tenure, only behind Enagbare, linebacker Eric Wilson and Van Ness. No other defensive tackle is in the top-13 players at the position since 2022. Colby Wooden is second-best with one-third of Brooks’ career snaps as a punt rusher and played one-fifth of Brooks’ punt rush reps last year. Defensive tackles usually don’t get a lot of burn on the punt return team, but the Packers are more than comfortable letting Brooks play a role usually given to edge rushers.

Aside from Wilson, Green Bay returns every significant contributor on their punt rush unit. The only real question is how much the additions of rookie draft pick defensive ends Barryn Sorrell and Collin Oliver will shake up the personnel. Otherwise, free-agent linebacker Isaiah Simmons should be able to step up in Wilson’s place on the line or elsewhere.

The last unit we’re going to talk about is the linebackers, who stand up behind the punt rushers. These players will watch for fakes, having to take routes downfield if they come out of the backfield, and then help the vises/jammers by either picking off or crossing blocking the gunners/fliers once they’ve confirmed that a punt is actually coming off of the punter’s foot. They usually cover the most ground outside of the vises/jammers.

Safety: 1,850 (53 percent)Linebacker: 751 (21 percent)Receiver: 369 (10 percent)Cornerback: 316 (9.0 percent)Running Back: 175 (5.0 percent)Edge Defender: 32 (0.9 percent)Tight End: 23 (0.7 percent)Fullback: 4 (0.1 percent)Defensive Tackle: 1 (0.03 percent)

This is your safety-linebacker hybrid position, while the punt rush is a linebacker-edge defender hybrid position. 74 percent of snaps go to safeties or linebackers here. If teams are short on safeties, linebackers or edge defenders, special teams units may have to dip into receivers, cornerbacks or running backs at this spot. Because of how the Packers have structured their roster since Bisaccia arrived, though, they’ve mostly avoided this. They will go out of their way to make sure their roster can handle their asks on special teams.

2024 Packers Player Snap Counts:

S Zayne Anderson: 37LB Eric Wilson: 25S Javon Bullard: 22S Kitan Oladapo: 10S Xavier McKinney: 9LB Ty’Ron Hopper: 8LB Quay Walker: 6ED Arron Mosby: 6WR Malik Heath: 4S Omar Brown: 4WR Bo Melton: 4LB Edgerrin Cooper: 3CB Corey Ballentine: 3S Evan Williams: 3ED Kingsley Enagbare: 1ED Brenton Cox Jr.: 1CB Robert Rochell: 1

2024 Packers Position Breakdown:

S: 85 (58 percent)LB: 42 (29 percent)ED: 8 (5.4 percent)WR: 8 (5.4 percent)CB: 4 (2.7 percent)

The Packers have mostly played safeties in this “linebacker” spot on the punt return team, but Green Bay has used Wilson, linebacker Kristian Welch, linebacker De’Vondre Campbell, tight end Josiah Deguara and cornerback Rasul Douglas in Bisaccia’s time with the team. With that being said, four of the five most-played players at the position have been safeties. For example, Zayne Anderson and Dallin Leavitt have played 53 and 52 reps at this position under Bisaccia, while the top non-Wilson safety is Deguara with only 18 snaps. That’s a pretty big gap.

The Packers’ uptick in safeties played at this spot in 2024 (six percent more than the NFL average) and linebacker (eight percent) comes at the expense of playing time for running backs, receivers and cornerbacks, who have only played about eight percent of linebacker snaps under Bisaccia while making up 24 percent of snaps played at linebacker league-wide in 2024.

Here’s where we’ll talk about Mosby, who, with six snaps played at the position, made up about 19 percent of total edge defender reps league-wide at the punt return linebacker position. Very few defensive ends get the opportunities that the Packers give to Mosby when he’s not playing on the punt rush. That is not solely a reason for him to make the 53-man roster, but it’s also not nothing that he’s got that break-in-case-of-emergency potential to mask injuries on this unit as a 4-3 defensive end who can play 4-3 linebacker (or even safety) roles.