The Green Bay Packers added four more players to their COVID-reserve list on Tuesday.
With defensive tackle Kingsley Keke, punter Corey Bojorquez, dime defensive back Henry Black and reserve tight end Tyler Davis added to the list on Wednesday, the Packers are up to 17 players out due to the virus.
A source said Bojorquez tested positive on Tuesday so he’d be eligible to return for Sunday night’s game against the Minnesota Vikings.
Keke was inactive for Saturday’s game against the Cleveland Browns but his absence had nothing to do with COVID.
To add healthy bodies to get through the week, the team signed outside linebacker Aaron Adeoye, offensive tackle Adrian Ealy, cornerback Jayson Stanley and running back Kerrith Whyte to the practice squad.
The Packers also made official the activation from injured reserve of cornerback Jaire Alexander and announced that rookie offensive lineman Cole Van Lanen would be a COVID elevation from this practice squad.
This is the second stint on the practice squad for Adeoye and Whyte.
Adeoye (6-6, 260) has quite a background. A native of Marion, Ill., his collegiate career began as a basketball player at Ball State. During the 2011-12 season, he earned Mid-American Conference all-freshman honors by averaging 3.5 points and 4.2 rebounds. Despite the success, he transferred to John A. Logan Community College in Carterville, Ill. In his one season there, he averaged 14.3 points and 8.0 rebounds per game to earn third-team All-American honors. That got him a shot at Western Kentucky, where he played sparingly as a junior, and he finished his career at Southeast Missouri State.
Not ready to give up on athletics, he decided to play football.
Whyte brings a dose of speed to the practice squad. At Florida Atlantic’s pro day before the 2019 draft, Whyte (5-10, 204) ran his 40-yard dash in 4.36 seconds. That would have ranked second among the backs who tested at the Scouting Combine. Thus, the three-year backup to current Buffalo Bills standout Devin Singletary was drafted in the seventh round by the Chicago Bears. During his rookie season, he was signed off the Bears’ practice squad by the Pittsburgh Steelers and rushed 24 times for 122 yards (5.1 average), caught one pass for 9 yards and averaged 18.9 yards on 14 kickoff returns.
Ealy (6-4, 321) is an undrafted rookie from Oklahoma. He was signed after the draft by the Baltimore Ravens, and had practice-squad stints with the Ravens, Broncos and Rams. He was a 23-game starter, at right tackle in 2009 and mostly at left tackle in 2020. He served a six-game suspension earlier this season for violating the league’s policy on substances of abuse.
Stanley (6-2, 209) was a teammate of Eric Stokes at Georgia, where he caught three passes and rushed four times in four seasons as a backup receiver. He went undrafted in 2019 and signed with the Atlanta Falcons, who moved him to defense. Following practice-squad stints with Miami and Jacksonville, he played eight games for the Seattle Seahawks in 2020.
Stanley immediately landed on the team’s COVID list.
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