Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports is reporting that the Green Bay Packers “are expected to hire” Will Redmond, who last served as the general manager of the Auburn Tigers. Yes, college teams have general managers.
Welcome to the NIL and portal era.
This is the third front office move that we know the Packers will be making this offseason, after vice president of player personnel Jon-Eric Sullivan took the general manager job with the Miami Dolphins and took pro scout Venzell Boulware with him.
No, this is not the same Will Redmond who played for the Packers from 2018 to 2021. By then, this Redmond had already been working in personnel. His resume includes stops at Middle Tennessee State, Western Michigan, Kansas, LSU and Auburn.
At LSU, he served as the director of player personnel, essentially the number two gig behind the team’s general manager, Austin Thomas, who is now at Mississippi. So, for the last five seasons, he’s been spending time evaluating college players, some of whom are in this upcoming class, in the southeast and beyond.
According to FootballScoop, Redmond had interest from several SEC programs, but elected to go the pro route. FootballScoop also claims that Redmond’s work with the Packers had already begun during Senior Bowl week. We don’t know Redmond’s official title at this point, but it will probably be something involving college scouting. Worth noting, 105 of the 329 invites for the NFL combine this year come from the SEC, which has been Redmond’s focus for the last five years.
For what it’s worth, here are Auburn’s expected draft selections in this class, ranked by the consensus draft board:
- #15 ED Keldric Faulk
- #73 iOL Connor Lew
- #139 ED Keyron Crawford
- #185 iOL Jeremiah Wright
All four of these players were invited to the combine. Lew is generally viewed as the top center prospect in the class, but is coming off a torn ACL.
Green Bay has dipped into the college level a couple of times this offseason. They recently hired Vanderbilt pass rush specialist Will Smart to an undefined role. The Packers’ new receivers coach is Noah Pauley, who followed Matt Campbell from Iowa State to Penn State. Green Bay also hired Sam Siefkes, whose last job was as the defensive coordinator of Virginia Tech before his firing, who will serve as the team’s linebackers coach.
