2020 6th Round Pick Jake Hanson Makes a Push for a Starting Job

The Packers have worked through a lot of different alignments for their offensive line in camp so far.

Some of that is to be expected; with David Bakhtiari and Elgton Jenkins on the sideline for now and with two relatively high draft picks in the mix for the first time, there was bound to be some reshuffling.

But I don’t think anybody can honestly they say they expected to see Jake Hanson practicing with the first team, much less at guard. A relatively unheralded player to this point in his career, Hanson’s ascension — however limited it ends up being — to the first team is a huge surprise, and with that in mind, it’s worth taking a few moments to get up to speed on his career so far.

Hanson arrives in Green Bay after a college career at Oregon

Hanson was a solid if unspectacular player during his five-year stay at Oregon. After spending redshirting his first season there, he started 49 games for the Ducks over the next four seasons, twice earning All-Pac 12 second team honors. Over his first three years there, he didn’t allow a sack.

In an interesting pre-Oregon quirk, Hanson was actually recruited as a tackle, ultimately converting to center when he arrived at Oregon. Now a guard, he’s (kind of) following in the footsteps of many Packers linemen before him, converting from tackle to an interior position.

Though scouts praised his mental approach to the game, the big knock on Hanson as a draft prospect was his size, and that’s still a bit of a hole in his game. Listed at 296 pounds at Oregon, Hanson added about eight pounds to his frame prior to the 2020 NFL Combine, weighing in at 304 for his official measurements. However, he’s slimmed down a bit from there, and the Packers again list him at 296 pounds, his playing weight at Oregon, which makes him the lightest offensive lineman on the Packers’ roster.

The Packers have viewed Hanson as a guard prospect from the beginning

The Packers selected Hanson in the sixth round of the 2020 NFL Draft and he spent all of the 2020 season shuffling on and off various reserve lists.

In 2021, he was active for five games during the regular season, playing six snaps on offense and 13 on special teams. Five of his six snaps on offense came at guard, which leads us to his present situation as a guard prospect.

We can’t say one way or another if it’s a good idea to put Hanson at guard — I’m skeptical, for the record. But the Packers have been thinking about this for some time. Brian Gutekunst said they viewed him as a potential guard when they drafted him in 2020.

He’s got enough size and versatility that, if he had to kick out to guard, he could do so,” Gutekunst said. “ Just really a model of consistency and another culture guy, the kind of guys that we like to bring into our offensive line room.”

Given their druthers, the Packers would probably prefer that 2022 third-round pick Sean Rhyan push Hanson for the right guard spot. But for right now the job appears to be his — and the extent to which it remains so will be worth following for the remainder of camp.

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