Following a breakout season from their young offense, the Packers are continuing to add to their core. The team has selected Arizona offensive tackle Jordan Morgan with the No. 25 overall pick.
If six quarterbacks had not gone off the board in the first 12 picks, the run on tackles might be this draft’s defining development. Seven are off the board in the draft’s first 25 picks. Not every member of this first-round contingent may play tackle as a rookie, but each did in their final college seasons. Counting Graham Barton, who is expected to slide from Duke left tackle to Buccaneers center, eight edge-blockers have gone in the first 26 picks.
Morgan joins a Packers team that cut David Bakhtiari after 11 seasons. Injuries doomed the final years of the former All-Pro’s Green Bay run, with an ACL tear during a New Year’s Eve 2020 practice providing a seminal setback for a team that had recently extended the blindside mainstay. Bakhtiari is unsigned and Morgan now profiles as a developmental option to eventually succeed him.
Morgan also has an ACL tear in his recent past, having gone down in November 2022. He made an impressive rehab journey, shaking off the major injury to become a first-round pick despite this draft oozing tackle options for teams. A three-year starter at Arizona, Morgan started 37 games at left tackle. His post-ACL journey included a first-team All-Pac-12 nod last season.
Green Bay’s LT situation did not crater after Bakhtiari’s latest absence. Bakhtiari lasted all of one game last season, needing a fifth surgery on his troublesome knee. Rasheed Walker, a 2022 seventh-round pick, stepped in and started 15 games. Pro Football Focus assigned him a middling grade. Walker gives the Packers an option, and the team now has 2019 first-round pick Andre Dillard – who has not come especially close to justifying his draft slot in Philadelphia or Nashville – on a veteran-minimum deal. The Packers now have some options, though the team has RT starter Zach Tom tied to a through-2025 contract.
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