We’re getting close to the end of our roster preview series. Today, we’re going to tackle the Green Bay Packers’ cornerback room, a lightning rod for Packers fans.
If you want to read any of our previous installments before we take you through every single cornerback on Green Bay’s 91-man roster, though, here are our breakdowns of Green Bay’s other position rooms:
Keisean Nixon
What more can we say about Keisean Nixon at this point? Going into Year 4 as a starter for the Packers, fans have already made their minds
up about who Nixon is, one way or another.
My opinion: Nixon is an average-ish outside cornerback in basically any metric that matters (passer rating allowed is a goofy stat and you should ignore it), but fans want a better “CB1” than Nixon. The truth is that Green Bay, as an institution, has pretty much played cornerbacks on one side of the field for my entire lifetime, so there’s never really a CB1-CB2 dynamic as much as there is a left corner-right corner dynamic.
Personally, I think Nixon’s cheap contract ($6 million per year, roughly in the ballpark of what linebacker Isaiah McDuffie is getting to be a backup and special teamer) has been a massive net positive for the team. With that being said, I, like basically everyone else, would like to see Nixon matched up with a better outside cornerback opposite of him than he’s seen over the past couple of years.
So far in practices, there’s been a rotation of cornerbacks opposite of Nixon in practices this spring and summer, but Nixon has been a mainstay in the starting lineup.
Carrington Valentine
Over three years, former seventh-round pick Carrington Valentine has made 30 starts in the NFL. For where he was drafted, that’s a positive, but there are certainly weaknesses in his game.
While he’s only 24 years old, Valentine has generally started seasons coming off the bench, only for worse coverage players to get replaced by Valentine down the stretch of the year. When Valentine does eventually win a starting job, though, we end up being reminded about how he’s a pretty light cornerback who has trouble getting off blocks.
For example, Valentine played a screen extremely poorly against the Philadelphia Eagles in the 2024 playoffs, one reason why the Packers lost that game. In late 2025, Green Bay tried to rotate Nate Hobbs and Kamal Hadden in on run downs for Valentine to try to fit the run better, before both Hobbs and Hadden went down with injuries.
I think Valentine is in the driver’s seat right now for the other starting outside cornerback job, simply because he’s the incumbent, but there’s going to be plenty of competition at the position after the moves Green Bay has made this offseason.
Brandon Cisse
The Packers seem to be getting their young rookies more involved in the starting rotation than they have in years past. This includes second-round pick Brandon Cisse immediately rotating in at outside cornerback, replacing Valentine, at times in minicamp.
Cisse is sort of a thinner cornerback (189 pounds) with the mentality of a safety, but has good athletic ability. This draft cycle, he clocked a 4.41-second 40-yard dash along with a 41” vertical jump. General manager Brian Gutekunst noted that he believes that Cisse can get heavier down the stretch, as he just turned 21 years old on July 3rd (he was born in 2005, if you can believe it).
Look for Cisse to be the primary challenger to press Valentine for a starting gig this year.
Benjamin St-Juste
Last year, Benjamin St-Juste put up some quality numbers as the Los Angeles Chargers’ fourth outside cornerback and as one of the most-played special teams cornerbacks in the NFL in 2025. This offseason, he signed a two-year, $9.8 million contract with Green Bay, which included $3 million guaranteed.
For perspective, his $4.9 million per year deal is roughly what the Packers are paying linebacker Isaiah McDuffie to be a true backup linebacker and special teamer. While there’s a chance that St-Juste could crack the starting lineup, my guess is that he ends up being a depth piece on the team and core special teamer. The Packers needed another starting gunner and jammer since Zayne Anderson left for the Miami Dolphins this offseason. I’m guessing that St-Juste and Bo Melton will start at gunner/jammer, premier roles on teams, for the 2026 Packers.
If Green Bay ever wants to play someone on run downs for Valentine, too, St-Juste makes sense in that role. At 6’3” and 202 pounds, St-Juste has a bigger frame than Valentine, if someone needs to play blocks at the cornerback position.
Domani Jackson
I’m guessing the fifth cornerback on the roster is going to be rookie sixth-round pick Domani Jackson, who played for USC and Alabama after being ranked as a top-five recruit back in 2022. Jackson came into the 2025 season with some first-round hype, but dealt with some injuries and was then living in a rotation in a deep Crimson Tide backfield.
Jackson carries his 6’1”, 194-pound frame well (and runs a 4.41-second 40-yard dash) and should be helpful on special teams early on, at a minimum. He’s got upside at the position, but he’s a little rough around the edges, particularly in terms of the pursuit angles he takes. With that being said, he’s an extremely physical cornerback in the tackling and block destruction department.
Kamal Hadden
With the Packers being a little less deep at safety this year, there’s a real possibility that Green Bay keeps six cornerbacks on the 53-man roster in 2026 (which is helped by the fact that St-Juste and Jackson could help on teams). Right now, I would guess that the sixth cornerback on the team is Kamal Hadden, who Matt LaFleur once called the most improved player on the 2025 roster before Hadden went down with his season-ending ankle injury.
By the end of the year, Hadden was actually playing run down reps in place of Valentine, but basically as soon as that rotation started, Hadden went down with the ankle issue. Obviously, we’re going to have to monitor whether Hadden can bounce back fully from the injury, but the 2024 sixth-round pick is still hovering around the roster bubble going into training camp.
Jaylin Simpson
Because of the injuries late in the year at the position, Jaylin Simpson was actually activated for Week 18 in the regular season against the Minnesota Vikings. He ended up playing 92.5 percent of the team’s total defensive snaps and making eight tackles in the Packers’ 16-3 loss.
He’s a really light cornerback, as he measured in sub-180 pounds during the 2024 draft cycle, and has played both cornerback and safety at the NFL level. We’ll have to see what he looks like with a full offseason with the Packers, as the former fifth-round pick was picked up by Green Bay mid-way through last training camp after originally spending the offseason with the New York Jets.
M.J. Devonshire Jr.
M.J. Devonshire Jr. is another former draft pick, this one being a seventh-round pick in 2024. He’s now on his fifth stop in the NFL, after he was waived by the Buffalo Bills in May and later claimed by the Packers. He hasn’t been activated in any game in the NFL thus far, so he’s kind of a mystery box player at this point.
Shemar Bartholomew
Shemar Bartholomew spent time on the Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers practice squads last year. He had previously played five games for the Panthers in 2024 before making his Packers debut in Week 18 in the JV game against the Vikings. In that game, he played 34 snaps, 51 percent of Green Bay’s total defensive reps in that matchup.
Considering how many more snaps Jaylin Simpson played, it seems fair to think that Bartholomew is behind him in the pecking order going into the 2026 season. For what it’s worth, though, it was a quick turnaround for Bartholomew, as he was signed to the Packers’ practice squad on December 2nd last year and was promoted to the active roster less than a month later.
Marlon Jones
The lone undrafted rookie free agent the Packers signed at the cornerback position is Vanderbilt’s Marlon Jones, who played about 10 snaps a game in the games he was active for last year after Jones beat cancer. Before his transfer to Vanderbilt, which aligned with his cancer diagnosis, Jones was an All-Big Sky cornerback at Eastern Washington, where he recorded three straight seasons of three interceptions. Truth be told, we haven’t seen Jones play extended playing time since the 2023 season, his final year at Eastern Washington, so he’s another mystery box type of player.
