Jordan Morgan is a guard because of some giant tackles

Offensive tackle Jordan Morgan, selected by the Packers with the 25th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, is not a tackle. At least, not yet.

The Packers want Morgan to play guard for now, giving their versatile rookie a chance to settle in at one spot rather than cross-training him everywhere.

“I think with that with young guys, you want to start them at a spot,” Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said on Monday. “You don’t want to move them around as much just so they can hone in on the techniques and the assignments and all that stuff. And when you look at the big picture, where we think he would compete best this year for a starting role, we looked and we thought the right guard position was the best spot.”

The Packers publicly are making this all about Morgan, but I think there’s a longer-running storyline here that’s also affecting what they do with their 2024 first-round pick: what I’ve referred to on Blue 58 as the Packers’ Giant Tackle Scholarship Program.

I think it’s clear that part of the reason the Packers feel like right guard is the best spot for Morgan right now is because of their depth at tackle, and that depth is a direct result of the resources they’ve devoted toward developing young tackles over the past few years. Specifically, the effort they’ve devoted to identifying, acquiring, and growing absolutely massive tackles for most of the past half-decade or so.

This story really starts in 2019, when the Packers signed Yosh Nijman as an undrafted free agent. Nijman was two things: enormous (6-foot-7 and 324 pounds) and raw. Though he was a long-time starter at Virginia Tech, the consensus opinion on Nijman was that he’d need some seasoning before seeing the field in the NFL.

So he waited. He spent nearly all of 2019 on the practice squad before making the 53-man roster in 2020, logging 14 snaps on offense throughout that season in addition to special teams duties. In 2021, he finally got a significant opportunity and started eight regular season games. He’d continue to serve as the Packers’ swing tackle backup through 2023 before signing a free agent contract with the Panthers in the spring of 2024.

In the meantime, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst kept signing massive tackles. In 2022, he added Caleb Jones (6-foot-9, 370 pounds) as an undrafted free agent, and later nabbed Luke Tenuta (6-foot-8, 319 pounds), a 2022 sixth-round pick by the Colts on waivers. Coincidentally, Tenuta had actually replaced Nijman in Virginia Tech’s lineup after Nijman’s departure to the NFL.

Jones and Tenuta both played peripheral roles on the 2022 Packers and stuck around through 2023, though Tenuta spent most of the year on injured reserve. But was Gutekunst done? Of course not. Because prior to adding Jones and Tenuta, Gutekunst had selected Penn State tackle Rasheed Walker in the seventh round of the 2022 NFL Draft. And like his compatriots, Walker played a peripheral role on the 2022 squad, appearing for a grand total of four snaps in one game — all on special teams — in his rookie season.

But while Jones and Tenuta were background players in 2023, Walker was anything but. After David Bakhtiari’s one-game curtain call, it was Walker who got the nod as his replacement, starting all but one game from Week 2 through the end of the season, successfully fending off Nijman in a rare in-season position battle.

Was that the only giant tackle to come on the scene in Green Bay in 2023? Of course it wasn’t, you know better than that by now. In 2023, Gutekunst signed UAB tackle Kadeem Telfort (6-foot-8, 322 pounds). Telfort spent all of last season on the practice squad, but with Zach Tom ailing, he’s taken first-team reps at right tackle this summer. If you’re scoring at home, that means the Packers currently have a seventh-round pick and an undrafted free agent holding down their two tackle spots, a virtually inconceivable development given the priority of those positions.

But once again, there is another. In 2024, Brian Gutekunst spent a sixth-round pick on Travis Glover (6-foot-6, 317 pounds). Glover hasn’t made much noise in camp to date, but given his size and guard/tackle versatility, it’s hard to count him out as another member of the Giant Tackle Scholarship Club.

Am I reading too much into this narrative? Possibly, but if twice is a coincidence and three times is a trend, what do you call six cases of the Packers selecting or signing a tackle that’s at least 6-foot-6 and often stands much taller? And how would you describe their willingness to sit these players not just on the practice squad but on the active roster without so much of a hint of a possibility of them actually playing meaningful reps before giving them a chance with the first team? That’s unusual, just about any way you slice it.

That leads me back to Morgan and Walker and the battle that never materialized between the two of them in training camp. I think the Packers would ultimately prefer Morgan at tackle long term; it’s the more important position, and he’s a significant investment. But given the Packers depth at tackle right now and the comparative lack thereof on the interior, it makes sense to give Morgan a crack at right guard. After all, Walker has already shown himself capable of holding down the fort at left tackle and Tom has a credible claim to being the best player on the whole team.

But why are their so many options at tackle? Because the Packers have spent time and effort identifying a specific kind of player they want and pouring resources into developing them. Caleb Jones and Luke Tenuta aren’t even really factors in the Packers’ tackle picture right now, and a big reason they’re not is because the Packers continued to add options around them even as Jones and Tenuta figured things out through 2022 and 2023.

So, yes, Adam Stenavich could be right. It could simply be the most beneficial for Jordan Morgan to sit tight at guard because it’s the most wide open position right now and it’s simpler to have him figure out one thing at a time. But there’s also a reason that position is so comparably wide open: because tackle isn’t. And a big reason it’s not is because of how the Packers have handled the last few years there — and how that effort has paid off.