The Green Bay Packers are heading towards the 2026 NFL Draft with a packed wide receiver room, but Georgia State wideout Ted Hurst has drawn some attention from general manager Brian Gutekunst and the team’s scouting department.
Hurst was the first reported pre-draft official visit by the Packers, which comes as a bit of a surprise given the team’s more prominent needs at other positions. However, considering five of the team’s top six receivers are entering contract years, the Packers may be looking
at long-term succession plans at the position while fielding trade offers for players like Dontayvion Wicks and Jayden Reed.
That helps provide some context to a pre-draft visit for Hurst, but it’s also easy to see why the Packers are one of multiple teams already showing interest in the Georgia State prospect.
Hurst is a 21-year-old wideout who spent his first two college seasons at Valdosta State before transferring to Georgia State in 2024. After earning second-team All-Sun Belt honors that first season for the Panthers, he earned first-team honors this past season, catching 71 passes for 1,004 yards and six touchdowns.
On top of some solid production, Hurst checks of a lot of athletic boxes for the Packers. He measures in at nearly 6’4” and 206 pounds with nearly 33-inch arms, and posted some solid testing numbers (albeit it without any recorded agility testing).
Matt LaFleur is notorious for preferring bigger receivers who can be effective blockers, and that’s something that he could work on with Hurst. However, more importantly for Packers fans, Hurst brings a lot to like as a pass catcher that turns heads on tape.
Despite his bigger frame, Hurst is a much better route runner than a lot of other big-bodied wideouts, showing impressive deceleration ability and is capable of sinking his hips to snap off routes at the stem. He’s got the size and body control to come away with tough contested catches, and has the second-gear acceleration and long strides to push the field vertically.
That’s an impressive and diverse skill set for a bigger receiver and it could make him a nice intermediate/deep option to complement the rest of Green Bay’s receivers, taking some of the pressure off of Christian Watson and company.
Hurst is currently 82nd on the consensus big board, which means the Packers would likely need to be willing to use one of their Day 2 selections to take a swing on another receiver. That’s a big risk given the team’s other, more pressing needs, but something to keep an eye on if the Packers end up moving on from one of their other receivers currently on the roster.
