The top of the Green Bay Packers’ depth chart is exciting, but it’s the backups and rotational players that could help them turn into a legitimate Super Bowl contender in 2026.
Every team has star players, and while the Packers have some extremely bright ones in players like Micah Parsons, Tucker Kraft, and Jordan Love, it takes all 11 players on the field at any time to find consistent success.
So let’s look at a few of these depth pieces who need to have positive contributions during the year to help
the Packers get their NFC North title back and become a dangerous contender.
Skyy Moore
Green Bay’s return units were extremely disappointing last season. Along with ranking just outside of the bottom ten in average kickoff return distance, the Packers were one of just three teams to have zero returns of 40-plus yards.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Packers also ranked dead last on punt returns with an average return of just 5.6 yards. That’s not good enough.
Skyy Moore comes into Green Bay as a proven return specialist. He averaged 11.64 yards per punt return last season while also returning a kickoff 98 yards for the San Francisco 49ers.
On top of his return ability, Moore can still be an effective veteran receiver to back up the likes of Jayden Reed and Matthew Golden, as made evident by some of his one-on-one reps in practice on Tuesday.
He’s not going to be WR1 in Green Bay, but Moore’s special teams contributions alone should make him a valuable part of this roster.
MarShawn Lloyd
Is this finally going to be the year where we see a fully healthy MarShawn Lloyd?
The former third-round pick out of USC has been plagued by injuries during his first two NFL seasons, appearing in just one game where he ran the ball six times for 15 yards.
Along with nagging hamstring injuries and an ankle issue that landed him on injured reserve as a rookie, the running back also underwent an emergency appendectomy just as he was activated off of IR that same season.
Lloyd has showed up to Packers training camp looking healthy, and reminded fans of the burst and speed that he brought with him from college that had the Packers taking him on Day 2 of the 2024 NFL Draft.
That’s an ideal play style for a change-of-pace RB, and as long as he can stay on the field, the Packers can utilize Lloyd’s speed in a variety of ways.
Barryn Sorrell
Micah Parsons isn’t expected to be back for the Packers until at least Week 6, throwing a wrench in Green Bay’s pass-rush plans to start the year.
That means that the rest of the Packers’ EDGEs need to step up, whether it’s Lukas Van Ness playing for an extension, Dani Dennis-Sutton trying to prove himself as a rookie, or Barryn Sorrell hoping to take a step forward after a quiet rookie year.
Sorrell was a fourth-round pick out of Texas last year, appearing in 14 games and playing 206 defensive snaps. The production was modest on those reps, generating just seven pressures, seven defensive stops, and 1.5 sacks on the year.
That doesn’t mean all hope is lost for the second-year EDGE. At 6-foot-4 and 260 pounds, Sorrell has ideal size out on the edge as a three-down player, and his flashes were awfully exciting last year.
It needs to be a group effort from Green Bay’s EDGE room with Parsons on the PUP and Rashan Gary now in Dallas, but keep an eye on Sorrell as a potential breakout candidate early in the year.
