It’s way too early to start thinking about the 2026 NFL Draft, especially since we don’t know who will be available when the Green Bay Packers will be picking 64th overall, but the team has already started work on the upcoming draft class. According to media reports from the first full week of college football, Packers front office members were out at five games (at least) this weekend.
Let’s walk through where the scouts were and who some players of interest are at these stops. The prospect rankings we’ll be referencing here are via the consensus draft board. Players listed underneath schools are ranked among the top 250 prospects for the 2026 draft.
Green Bay sent three scouts to Texas-Ohio State and were one of seven teams to send several members of the front office to the game. Honestly, I thought the best player in the game was redshirt sophomore Arvell Reese, who is not currently ranked as a draftable player, but had a hell of a day in his first Week 1 start of his college career. Look for the linebacker to shoot up draft boards quickly. Texas also has a pair of offensive linemen in Trevor Goosby and D.J. Campbell, the latter who plays guard, that the Packers could be interested in next draft.
General manager Brian Gutekunst was actually at this game, making him one of three general managers in attendance. Avieon Terrell, brother of A.J. Terrell, was the best performer out of the bunch, in my opinion. LSU has some interesting transfers in Mansoor Delane, a 6’0” cornerback with legit 4.4 speed, and Patrick Payton, a defensive end who had a down year in 2024 with Florida State. A name to remember: Trey’Dez Green. Green is listed as a tight end for LSU, but mostly plays the slot at 6’7” and 240 pounds. There’s nothing that Matt LaFleur values more than size out of his receivers. Green is only a sophomore, but the two-sport (basketball) athlete could end up in Green Bay down the line. Harold Perkins is also a very odd player, as he started his career as an edge rusher, moved to linebacker, tore his ACL last year and is now playing the slot defender position for LSU.
Most of Marshall’s top players transferred out to Southern Miss, where head coach Charles Huff left following the Sun Belt-winning season that the Thundering Herd put together in 2024. In total, Marshall has 74 new players on its roster this year…so it’s safe to bet that the Packers scout was there to watch Georgia. If you want to watch a fun punt returner, Zachariah Branch is a former five-star recruit who transferred from USC last offseason. He won the Jet Award in 2023, which goes to the top returner in college football. As a true freshman, Branch posted a 20.8 yards per return average in the punt game. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Most of the future NFL talent in this game was on South Carolina’s sideline. Nyck Harbor was a second-team All-American in outdoor track (100m and 200m) before dropping his Olympic dream to focus on football only. He had a pretty bad drop in the game, but scored a late touchdown. At 6’5”, 235 pounds with real-deal Olympic speed, someone is going to take him high and hope he develops into more of a football player than athlete. Gutekunst was one of two NFL general managers at the game, along with the Los Angeles Rams’ Les Snead.
Here’s a fun one. The Packers were one of three teams who visited Western Colorado for their season-opening game. If I were to guess, scouts were just in the area for Georgia Tech-Colorado earlier this week, so they made the short(er) trip from Boulder to Gunnison (about four hours). The top player in this game is Division II All-American defensive end Ricky Freymond, who is listed at 6’5” and 265 pounds. Last year, over 13 games, he posted 12 sacks and 24.5 TFLs. Freymond had two tackles in the top-10 ranked Western Colorado’s 45-28 win.