A lot of people are clamoring for a new punt returner for the Green Bay Packers, so I decided to take a look at the upcoming draft class to see what was available. What became very clear to me early on is that the man for the job is Baylor\u2019s Josh Cameron, a 6\u20191\u201d, 223-pound receiver (verified at the Senior Bowl). First, though, I want to show my work.<\/p>\n
Outside of very rare exceptions, punt returners come in the form of a running back, receiver or defensive back at the NFL level. According to the consensus draft board<\/a>, there are 103 draftable players (top-256) at those positions in the upcoming class. Of those 103 players, only 27 of them ever returned a punt at the college level, per College Football Reference\u2019s data<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of those 27, 8 are highly unlikely to be available for the Packers\u2019 top pick of the 2026 class, as they are ranked among the top-40 prospects in the class.<\/p>\n #6 S Caleb Downs, Ohio State#9 WR Jordyn Tyson, Arizona State#11 CB Mansoor Delane, LSU#15 CB Jermod McCoy, Tennessee#16 WR Makai Lemon, USC#25 WR Denzel Boston, Washington#26 WR Kevin Concepcion, Texas A&M#39 WR Zachariah Branch, Georgia<\/p>\n Off of draft stock alone, these players are not Packers-relevant (at least at this point). As we\u2019ve written about before, projected top-40 picks are highly unlikely to still be available when the 52nd overall pick comes on the clock (the slot which will be Green Bay\u2019s first selection in the draft) unless they have character or injury red flags. The Packers also don\u2019t dip their toes in those waters often (the most recent character red flag I can recall was Devonte Wyatt in 2022<\/a>, and the most recent known injury red flag was Vince Biegel in 2017). Generally, Green Bay is conservative in those two aspects.<\/p>\n From here, let\u2019s make some cuts for size.<\/p>\n Running back is going to be easy to talk about. Green Bay likes their backs to be in the 220-pound range (See: Josh Jacobs, Emanuel Wilson, Chris Brooks, AJ Dillon) as they\u2019re actively trying to build their team around being able to run the ball inside. I don\u2019t think that will change in 2026. The only draftable running back who has caught a single punt at the college level is Pittsburgh\u2019s Desmond Reid, who is all of 5\u20196\u201d, 162 pounds. Firmly not a Packers-type player.<\/p>\n At receiver, the LaFleur-era Packers like to be 200-plus pounds at the receiver position (really more in the 210 range), even in the slot. Green Bay wants to win blocks on the perimeter and use receivers as insert players, almost like tight ends, if they need to.<\/p>\n The following receivers with punt return experience are not a fit, from that perspective:<\/p>\n Antonio Williams, Clemson (5\u201911\u201d, 190 pounds, estimated by NFL Draft Scout)Brenen Thompson, Mississippi State (5\u20199\u201d, 170 pounds)Eric Rivers, Georgia Tech (5\u20199\u201d, 185, verified)Kevin Coleman Jr., Missouri (5\u201911\u201d, 174, verified)Aaron Anderson, LSU (5\u20198\u201d, 177, verified)Barion Brown, LSU (5\u201911, 176, verified)Vinny Anthony II, Wisconsin (6\u20190\u201d, 185, verified)<\/p>\n To the Packers, these would be slot-only players<\/a>, with the way LaFleur uses the receiver position, and they aren\u2019t even preferred for that. With Jayden Reed and Matthew Golden already serving the \u201csmall receiver\u201d role in the offense, it\u2019s highly unlikely that Green Bay would give up another 53-man roster spot (and a 48-man gameday spot) for a backup to the backup to the slot receiver. (I\u2019m giving some grace about size for the receivers who passed, which we\u2019ll get into.)<\/p>\n At cornerback, the Packers are also pretty specific with their wants at the position<\/a>. If you haven\u2019t caught on yet, Green Bay general manager Brian Gutekunst learned from Ted Thompson, who learned from Ron Wolf, who learned from Al Davis, the ultimate height-weight-speed evaluator. In general, the team wants to be big.<\/p>\n Since Thompson, the Packers have never drafted a cornerback who is as short as either Indiana\u2019s D\u2019angelo Ponds (estimated to be 5\u20199\u201d, 173 pounds) or USC\u2019s DJ Harvey (estimated to be 5\u201910\u201d-flat, 188). They also probably won\u2019t be in the slot-only market this year, with Javon Bullard, Nate Hobbs, Kitan Oladapo and Keisean Nixon already under contract in 2026. Miami corner Keionte Scott (5\u201911\u201d, 195) was already a full-time slot-only player at the college level, so that\u2019s another name off our list.<\/p>\n The last cut I want to make is Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman, who is projected to be the 44th overall prospect in this class. I just can\u2019t imagine Green Bay turning in their second-round pick for a safety when Xavier McKinney, Bullard, Evan Williams and Oladapo are under contract. If that happens, there might be a riot.<\/p>\n So, who are we left with then? These 7 players remaining out of our original list of 103 running backs, receivers and defensive backs:<\/p>\n #41 on consensus board: Chris Johnson, CB, San Diego State#55: Germie Bernard, WR, Alabama#97: Jalon Kilgore, S, South Carolina#104: C.J. Daniels, WR, Miami#170: Josh Cameron, WR, Baylor#246: Skyler Thomas, S, Oregon State#247: Lewis Bond, WR, Boston College<\/p>\n Johnson (6\u20190\u201d, 190 pounds, verified), Bernard (6\u20190\u201d, 204 estimated) and Bond (5\u201911\u201d, 197, verified) are sort of on the border of what Green Bay is looking for, from a height or weight perspective, but I\u2019m giving ties to runners if we\u2019re here just to make a watch list.<\/p>\n Here are those players\u2019 career stats as punt returners:<\/p>\n Johnson: 2 punt returns, 0 yardsBernard: 4, 43 (in 2023)Kilgore: 12, 74Daniels: 3, 16 (in 2023)Cameron: 45, 632Thomas: 1, 7 (in 2022)Bond: 6, 67 (in 2023)<\/p>\n For perspective, the single-season leader in punt returns at the college level in 2025 was Toledo\u2019s Bryson Hammer (fire name alert) with 30. The only legitimately experienced punt returner who fits the Packers\u2019 offensive or defensive specs (and roster situation) is Cameron.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve harped on how wanting big receivers really hurts the punt return game for years. In August, I wrote \u201cWhy it\u2019s going to be hard for the Packers to get better on punt returns\u201d<\/a>, with the main point being that LaFleur-era receivers average to be around 6\u20190\u201d and 208 pounds, while the league average punt returner is 5\u20199\u201d and 183 pounds. It\u2019s also why it was so easy to spot that Savion Williams was a Packers-type receiver months ahead of the draft<\/a>.<\/p>\n To save you the heartbreak, if you\u2019re going to latch onto the hope of a rookie punt returner coming in and saving the day, have it be Cameron. There are some other punt returners in this class, like Iowa\u2019s Kaden Wetjen (who measured in at the Shrine Bowl under 5\u20199\u201d and 195 pounds with short hands and reach). This team will actually like Cameron, from an offensive perspective, though. He\u2019s sort of the one shot in this class where the team\u2019s draft and develop approach<\/a>, what they want to do on offense\/defense and their need for a punt returner can overlap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lot of people are clamoring for a new punt returner for the Green Bay Packers, so I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[7,41,345,623,2514,2513,6,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-717887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-bay-packers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-green-bay","10":"tag-green-bay-packers","11":"tag-green-bay-packers-draft","12":"tag-greenbay","13":"tag-greenbaypackers","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-packers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115987085329984750","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}