Packers Sign Desperately Needed Long Snapper and Receiver

The Green Bay Packers have had a kicker battle waiting on standby without veteran long snapper Matt Orzech. After two days of training camp, they have signed veteran Cal Adomitis, a source told Packers On SI.

The Packers also signed UFL-champion receiver Kaden Prather. The Packers were a man down at receiver with Brenden Rice banged up.

Signing a long snapper was a necessity.

Adomitis was by far the best combination of talent and experience on the market. He snapped for the Bengals in 49 games from 2022 through 2024 and for the Eagles in nine games last season.

Adomitis was one of three long snappers who worked out for the team on Thursday. That the Packers signed an experienced snapper instead of a short-term placeholder would indicate this is going to be legitimate competition.

The Packers signed Orzech to a three-year extension last year, which included a $750,000 signing bonus. If the Packers were to move on, it would cost them $562,000 in dead cap – a small price to pay if they feel the operation runs smoother with Adomitis.

That’s to be determined, but Adomitis will bring a veteran presence to the rookie vs. rookie battle at kicker between Trey Smack and Lenny Krieg.

Adomitis played in 64 collegiate games and was a first-team All-American at Pittsburgh. He went undrafted in 2022.

“I originally started long snapping in my junior year in high school,” he said before the 2022 draft. “We were going into the season as one of the top 20 teams in the country. We were a stacked team, and I was basically just fighting for time as a tight end, but still not to the point that would constitute getting scholarship offers yet. My dad was the one who just said that long snapping is an additional way to get on the field.”

Known for his long hair, he cut it off in 2021 to raise $114,000 for Locks of Love.

“The actual idea grew from something I used to joke around with my old roommates about,” he said at the time. “When I first grew my hair long, they were like, ‘How much would it cost for us to cut your hair?’ Coming into this year, with the excitement around this team, I thought we could really capitalize on that to raise money for a great cause and then shave it off at the end after doing something good.”

The Packers on the first day of camp on Wednesday went through the motions during the field-goal period. On Thursday, center Sean Rhyan snapped several times. Finally, rookie kicker Trey Smack booted three chip-shot field goals.

“We may have to do that,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said before the first practice. “There’s some guys on the street we’ll probably bring some guys in to work out. He’s got a little bit of a calf, nothing long term, but it does disrupt practice when you don’t have a guy who can snap it. Special teams guys don’t like that. I don’t see what the problem is. We’ve got a JUGS Machine, we’ve got lots of things to do.

“It does disrupt practice and, quite frankly, with a rookie kicker we want to have as much practice there as we can get. It would be nice to have Matt out there and there may be a time where he’s able to do some of the snapping before he can do a lot of the running. That’s more of the issue, but hopefully we can get him back soon because that continuity there is important.”