Fifth in a series.
GREEN BAY — While Zach Tom, Sean Rhyan and Rasheed Walker might not necessarily be spending their off time holding weekly group therapy sessions to cope with the reality that all three of them are in the final year of their rookie contracts, the Green Bay Packers offensive line trio is heading into training camp looking to savor every moment together.
That’s what happens when you’re close friends and facing the same brand of uncertainty: Not knowing where you’ll be working a year from now.
“I mean, we’ll talk about just the fact that we’ve all came in together, we’ve been here together for the most part all three years. But we’ll never really get into the contract stuff,” Tom explained during the offseason program. “I think it’s cool that we all got drafted in the same class and we’re all still together.
“We’ve all been through it together, and those are probably two of my best friends ever. That sounds kind of corny, but yeah.”
In NFL fiscal terms, Rhyan (third round), Tom (fourth round) and Walker (seventh round) didn’t strike it rich on their rookie contracts, so all three will be looking for their big payday. But first, they want to relish this season together if it is their last.
“Sometimes, the way this league goes, tomorrow might be a different team. So, you got to just relish every day, enjoy it, and just control what you can control,” Tom said. “That’s what we do really well because we don’t have control over the whole contract thing. So, we’re just trying to get out there, get better, and play football.”
The job status of that threesome is only part of the training-camp intrigue on the offensive line.
If any of the three is going to get a contract extension, it would be Tom, who is one of the top right tackles in the league. But with less than a week to go before the first practice, Tom still didn’t have a new deal, and it’s unclear as to whether he’ll actually dress and participate in practice without one.
There’s similar uncertainty with left guard-turned-center Elgton Jenkins, who skipped all of the voluntary work during the offseason program and attended the mandatory minicamp in order to avoid automatic fines but didn’t do any on-field work. Will he cave and practice?
And there’s rookie offensive tackle Anthony Belton, who was the Packers’ one still-unsigned draft pick as of Thursday morning. A second-round pick from North Carolina State, Belton was one of the players caught in the middle of agents’ attempts to get their clients fully guaranteed deals after the first two selections of the second round did.
That gridlock might’ve finally eased when the San Francisco 49ers came to terms with their second-round pick, Alfred Collins. Collings, the No. 43rd overall selection, got a four-year, $10.3 million deal with more than $9 million of it guaranteed — but not all of it.
On top of all the will-he-or-won’t-he questions, there’s also a major competition up front: Walker, the incumbent with 35 starts under his belt, against 2024 first-round draft pick Jordan Morgan for the No. 1 left tackle job.
“It’s going to be a great competition,” head coach Matt LaFleur predicted. “[Morgan] and ‘Sheed are going to battle it out and hopefully push each other to be that much better. Certainly, it’s something we feel like [Morgan] can do. Otherwise, we wouldn’t do it. So we’ll let them battle it out and see where it goes.”
Here’s a closer look at the offensive line as the Packers prepare for training camp, which kicks off with its first practice on Wednesday morning:
Depth chart
No.
Name
Pos.
Ht.
Wt.
Age
Exp.
College
63
Rasheed Walker
LT
6-6
324
25
4
Penn State
65
Aaron Banks
LG
6-5
325
27
5
Notre Dame
74
Elgton Jenkins
C
6-5
311
29
7
Mississippi State
75
Sean Rhyan
RG
6-5
321
24
4
UCLA
50
Zach Tom
RT
6-4
304
26
4
Wake Forest
77
Jordan Morgan
T/G
6-5
311
23
2
Arizona
71
Anthony Belton
T
6-6
335
24
R
North Carolina St.
62
Jacob Monk
C/G
6-3
308
24
2
Duke
76
Kadeem Telfort
T
6-7
322
26
2
UAB
79
Travis Glover
T
6-6
317
24
2
Georgia State
72
Brant Banks
T
6-7
306
25
R
Rice
67
Donovan Jennings
G/T
6-4
323
25
1
South Florida
73
John Williams
G
6-4
322
23
R
Cincinnati
60
Tyler Cooper
G
6-5
302
24
R
Minnesota
61
J.J. Lippe
G
6-5
302
24
R
Northern Illinois
64
Trey Hill
C
6-4
319
25
4
Georgia
Burning Question | How quickly will the coaches commit to the proverbial “best five” linemen?
No position on a roster relies more on connectivity and working together than the offensive line, and with Tom, Jenkins and Belton’s participation to start camp unclear as well as the Walker vs. Morgan left tackle battle, things feel more than smidge unsettled at the moment.
How soon that feeling will ease depends in large part in how quickly contract situations are resolved and battles are won.
“That’s going to be a competitive room when you talk about our offensive line,” head coach Matt LaFleur said. “We’ll figure it out in terms of trying to get our best five out there. But there’s going to be a lot of competition.”
On the rise | Tom.
Tom made no excuses for some of the lapses in his performance last season, never once blaming the torn pectoral muscle he suffered during the offseason which limited his strength and his options on how to counteract pass rushers’ maneuvers.
And yet, somehow, he still managed to start all 18 of the Packers’ games last season (including playoffs) and played 1,070 of the Packers’ offensive snaps in the regular season (98.7%). Pro Football Focus had him as their sixth-highest graded offensive tackle league-wide, as the third-year starter finished with an overall grade of 85.8, a run-blocking grade of 87.8 and a pass-blocking grade of 81.0 — all personal bests.
He also finished third among right tackles in the Associated Press’ annual All-Pro balloting, behind Detroit’s Penei Sewell and Philadelphia’s Lane Johnson. No other right tackles league-wide received a vote.
“Zach is a heady, smart player,” offensive line coach Luke Butkus said. “I’m going to give him the tools and I’m going to help teach him, but he’s a really smart player. He does things that just come naturally to him. I’d like to take credit, but I don’t think it’s me.”
Player to watch | Banks.
That $77 million price tag on his free-agent deal gave more than a few folks sticker shock, but closer examination of the structure of the deal show that Banks must prove himself in order to collect much of that money.
Although he got a $27 million guaranteed signing bonus, his 2026 base salary is $7.7 million, and he’s also due a $9.5 million roster bonus on the third day of the league year. There’s another of those roster bonuses in March 2027, too.
According to Spotrac, if the Packers were to decide he wasn’t a good fit, they could move on rather painlessly. they’d be out roughly $29 million in 2025 pay but, oddly enough, his dead cap charge ($20 million) would be less than his scheduled 2026 cap charge ($24.85 million).
Key competition | Walker vs. Morgan.
In an era where training-camp battles have become less and less commonplace, this one will be the main event. While Walker is the incumbent, Morgan is a first-round pick, and coaches and organizations always feel pressure to get high picks on the field.
That said, Walker won last summer’s competition with an early-round knockout, as Morgan barely challenged him before a shoulder injury in camp became a year-long issue.
So while Walker played 1,075 of the Packers’ 1,085 regular-season offensive snaps (99.2%), Morgan’s rookie season was essentially a medical redshirt year, with him making one start (at right guard) and playing merely 186 offensive snaps (17.2%).
Bold prediction | Rhyan will keep his right guard job and get a big contract next March — from another team.
They don’t come much tougher than Rhyan, and we’re not just talking about how challenging his interviews tend to be because when he gets excited about a topic, he unconsciously lets the expletives fly. From barely playing as a rookie, to getting suspended for violating the NFL’s performance-enhancing substance policy, to basically being called out of shape by the coaches in training camp and early in the regular season last year, to the staff giving Morgan every opportunity to take his job, Rhyan answered the bell every time he was challenged.
That’s why the guess here is that he’ll do so again — by having a strong season and earning a megabucks deal from another organization.
Next: Defensive line.
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