The Packers are broadly expected to invest some of their capital in the upcoming 2026 NFL Draft in their secondary, and for good reason. Even with the acquisition of Benjamin St-Juste, the Packers could badly use some depth at cornerback, in addition to some help at the top end of the depth chart. Basically they just need capable bodies at cornerback.
Now, they’re apparently taking steps toward finding one. According to reporting from Justin Melo of Sports Illustrated, the Packers had a “formal meeting”
with Missouri cornerback Toriano Pride Jr. at this year’s NFL Combine.
Pride is a dynamic athlete who could fill an interesting role in the Packers’ new-look defense under Jonathan Gannon. He had himself quite a day at the NFL Combine, blazing a 4.32-second 40-yard dash to go with a 37.5-inch vertical leap and a 10-foot broad jump, resulting in a Relative Athletic Score of 8.33.
Pride played primarily as an outside corner over his four years of college football (two at Clemson followed by two at Missouri), though he does have a bit of slot experience. The biggest knock on him, to this point, is his size: he measured just a shade over 5-foot-10 and weighed just 185 pounds at the Combine. That’s 20th percentile height and 19th percentile weight, according to Mockdraftable. In short, he’s, well, short. And light. He’s a small corner.
That may not be as big of a deal for the Packers now as it has been in the past. Brian Gutekunst has been a bit more flexible on cornerback size than the Packers were under Ted Thompson or any other personnel man dating back to Ron Wolf. Pride, for his part, is an eighth of an inch taller than Jaire Alexander, who was considered a bit of a historical combo breaker for the Packers based on his size when the Packers selected him in 2018.
The Packers would probably be a bit more willing to be flexible on a player like Pride, considering where he’s likely to get drafted. As of this writing, he’s player number 356 on the NFL Mock Draft Database consensus big board — a likely undrafted free agent in other words.
Still, it’s never a bad idea to stay on top of who the Packers are meeting with, and you can put Pride on their list for this spring.
