{"id":728677,"date":"2026-02-04T11:53:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/728677\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T11:53:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:53:28","slug":"packers-draft-an-early-look-at-the-2026-center-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/728677\/","title":{"rendered":"Packers Draft: An early look at the 2026 center class"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to draft rankings, I think it\u2019s important to evaluate the evaluator. To me, there\u2019s no one in the business doing better work on offensive linemen than Brandon Thorn, who currently drops his draft prospect rankings on Bleacher Report as part of their B\/R NFL Scouting Dept. series. Thorn, whom I have previously worked with on the series, works with OL Masterminds, an offseason summit that brings in college, pro and former pro offensive linemen together to work on the craft together for a week, and is a Joe Moore Award voter, which is an award that goes to \u201cthe most outstanding offensive line unit in college football.\u201d<\/p>\n

I am biased. I have worked with Thorn. I also think he knows his stuff better than anyone else who is public-facing. When I have a question about offensive linemen in the draft, I go to Thorn as frequently as I go to scouts I know in the industry. Take that for what you will.<\/p>\n

I say all of this because Thorn (who only does B\/R\u2019s offensive line evals) and company just dropped their updated top-225 for the upcoming draft<\/a>. Considering that the Green Bay Packers could lose their top two centers this offseason, with Elgton Jenkins likely being a cap casualty<\/a> and Sean Rhyan potentially hitting free agency<\/a>, I wanted to look through Thorn\u2019s center rankings.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s do just that together, with data, info I\u2019ve been told from scouts and help from the consensus draft board to compare and contrast Thorn\u2019s rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Center Prospect Rankings – 2026 NFL Draft<\/p>\n

Sam Hecht, Kansas StateBleacher Report: 96 (late 3rd)Consensus Board: 117 (4th)Height: 6042 (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Weight: 297 pounds (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Snaps Played: C – 1,510, 7 – RG, 3 – LGJake Slaughter, FloridaBleacher Report: 113 (4th)Consensus Board: 89 (3rd)Height: 6044 (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Weight: 305 pounds (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Snaps Played: C – 1,817, RT – 1Connor Lew, AuburnBleacher Report: 114 (4th)Consensus Board: 74 (early 3rd)Height: 6032 (estimated)Weight: 303 pounds (estimated)Snaps Played: C – 1,461, LG – 2, LT – 1Logan Jones, IowaBleacher Report: 139 (early 5th)Consensus Board: 98 (late 3rd)Height: 6026 (estimated)Weight: 302 pounds (estimated)Snaps Played: C – 1,348, LG – 1James Brockermeyer, MiamiBleacher Report: 144 (early 5th)Consensus Board: 307 (undrafted)Height: 6031 (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Weight: 297 pounds (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Snaps Played: C – 1,684, RT – 2, RG – 1Parker Brailsford, AlabamaBleacher Report: 183 (early 6th)Consensus Board: 100 (late 3rd)Height: 6020 (estimated)Weight: 290 pounds (estimated)Snaps Played: C – 2,186, RG – 131, RT – 2, LG -2Pat Coogan, IndianaBleacher Report: 187 (early 6th)Consensus Board: 154 (5th)Height: 6051 (estimated)Weight: 311 pounds (estimated)Snaps Played: C – 1,623, LG – 645, RG – 1<\/p>\n

On public boards, Kansas State\u2019s Sam Hecht is rising quickly. To scouts, he\u2019s been a known name for a while. I mentioned in my first (and so far only) mock offseason of 2026<\/a> that he wouldn\u2019t be around for the seventh-round pick that I took him at, based on the consensus board rankings. Beyond Hecht\u2019s \u201crise,\u201d these are mostly names that have been floated on center lists throughout the 2025 season. The one exception is Miami\u2019s James Brockermeyer, whom Thorn is significantly higher on than the consensus. I haven\u2019t poked around on him, but I am excited to do so and watch his film. I\u2019ll report back.<\/p>\n

Thorn is at least a full round lower, at least in terms of B\/R\u2019s overall player rankings, than the consensus on the following players: Lew (who is coming off a torn ACL), Jones, Brailsford and Coogan. That\u2019s over half of the draftable 2026 true center class. That\u2019s not great for center-needy teams.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s significantly lower on Brailsford, by about two and a half rounds, but I\u2019m not sure how much Brailsford would impact the Packers\u2019 draft plans. Green Bay already is actively trying to get bigger on the line<\/a>, and Brailsford is expected to be maybe 6\u20192\u201d-flat and maybe 290 pounds on the dot. He\u2019s not really a \u201cPackers type\u201d at this point.<\/p>\n

The last interesting bit here is that Matt Gulbin of Michigan State, who is 162nd on the consensus draft board, didn\u2019t make B\/R\u2019s top-225 cut. There are a lot of split opinions on Gulbin, a fifth-year player who transferred from Wake Forest last offseason. For example, ESPN\u2019s Mel Kiper has Gulbin ranked as his fourth overall interior offensive lineman in the class<\/a>, behind only Lew among center prospects. For what it\u2019s worth, Packers scouts visited Michigan State games several times this season, which is odd for a team that has so few draftable prospects.<\/p>\n

Center Converts – 2026 NFL Draft<\/p>\n

Keylan Rutledge, Georgia TechBleacher Report: 101 (early 4th)Consensus Board: 101 (early 4th)Height: 6033 (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Weight: 316 pounds (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Snaps Played: RG – 2,696, LG – 47, RT – 3Brian Parker II, DukeBleacher Report: 105 (early 4th)Consensus Board: 87 (3rd)Height: 6046 (confirmed, Shrine Bowl)Weight: 306 pounds (confirmed, Shrine Bowl)Snaps Played: RT – 1,726, LT – 327, C – 2, LG – 1Trey Zuhn III, Texas A&MBleacher Report: 155 (5th)Consensus Board: 163 (5th)Height: 6063 (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Weight: 309 pounds (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Snaps Played: LT – 2,811, C – 123, LG – 3, RT -2Garrett DiGiorgio, UCLABleacher Report: 156 (5th)Consensus Board: 443 (undrafted)Height: 6062 (confirmed, Shrine Bowl)Weight: 321 pounds (confirmed, Shrine Bowl)Snaps Played: RT – 2,331, RG – 409, LT – 120Delby Lemieux, DartmouthBleacher Report: 209 (late 6th)Consensus Board: 250 (late 7th)Height: 6050 (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Weight: 305 pounds (confirmed, Senior Bowl)Snaps Played: LT – 1,160, LG – 3 (only partial career data)<\/p>\n

With a relatively weak center class, a lot of teams will be looking at converts to move to the center position. There\u2019s a certain subgroup of Packers fans who don\u2019t want to see more offensive line conversions in Green Bay, but most college teams are just playing their best players at the tackle positions instead of playing them at the position they\u2019ll be playing as a pro. That\u2019s just the reality of life unless the NFL wants to actually fund its own minor league system (they don\u2019t).<\/p>\n

Do I think it was dumb that the team played Jordan Morgan (a player I have always viewed as a tackle-only lineman) at guard for a year and a half? Yes. Do I think it was dumb that the team played Anthony Belton (a player I have always viewed as a guard-only lineman) at tackle for training camp and the first half of the 2025 regular season? Yes. I don\u2019t think moving positions was a major factor in Elgton Jenkins\u2019 decline in Green Bay, though, as he was significantly worse in 2024 than he was in 2023. Rhyan also fit in better as a center than he did as a guard, and he was a college tackle.<\/p>\n

As far as these conversion players go, Rutledge, Parker, Zuhn and Lemieux all got the chance to play some center during the all-star circuit and did well, according to scouts I\u2019ve talked to. Rutledge was primarily a guard in college, while Parker, Zuhn and Lemieux played tackle. All of the tackles will be moving inside due to a lack of size, mostly related to arm length.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been some rumbling in the scouting community about how DiGiorgio has some ability to play all five positions at the next level, so I\u2019ll include him in this list, too. Despite measuring in at 6\u20196.25\u201d and 321 pounds, DiGiorgio was listed with just 32.75\u201d arms at the Shrine Bowl. For perspective, that\u2019s in the 85th percentile for height among offensive linemen, per Mockdraftable, but just 23rd percentile for arm length. To say the least, he has an odd build.<\/p>\n

For the most part, Thorn is in lock step with the consensus board on the center converts, besides being significantly higher on DiGiorgio than the masses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to draft rankings, I think it\u2019s important to evaluate the evaluator. To me, there\u2019s no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728678,"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-728677","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\/116012227346372439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728677","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=728677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}