Fringe roster players have to play on special teams. If you’ve watched NFL teams put together their rosters for any length of time, you know this is true. It’s so true that our Justis Mosqueda can put together multiple detailed guides to who does what and when on special teams and have it not be a waste of time. It’s important stuff! (Justis, this is carte blanche to continue your sicko behavior breaking down special teams tape. I promise, if nobody else is reading, I am.)
The importance of special
teams contributions makes exceptions to special teams participation all the more mysterious. Luke Musgrave’s contributions on special teams are practically nil, complicating an already tight race at tight end. But for my money, the most notable player not lining up on special teams is Brenton Cox.
A 2023 undrafted free agent, Cox has all the hallmarks of a guy you’d expect to be among the leaders in special teams snaps. He has good size at 6-foot-4 and 250 pounds and ran the 40-yard dash in a respectable 4.82 seconds, a tick faster than fellow defensive end Kingsley Enagbare (4.87 seconds) and only a bit slower than Arron Mosby (4.71 seconds). But while Enagbare and Mosby are regulars on special teams (184 and 241 snaps on special teams, respectively, in 2024), Cox plays almost exclusively on defense.
In the seven games for which he was active last year, Cox played just 40 snaps on special teams, all on either kickoff return or punt return. Over a full season, that projects to about 97 special teams snaps — a respectable figure, but not at all what you’d expect from a guy who has yet to ever really be a priority on the Packers’ defense in any way.
And that rate of special teams play is actually an uptick in his participation. Active for four games in 2023, Cox logged just nine snaps on special teams, another outlier performance.
And it’s not like he plays much more in the preseason, even on a rate basis. In two full preseasons (2023 and 2024), Cox played just 20 total snaps on special teams (12 and 8 snaps in 2023 and 2024), but made the roster anyway.
Is he just that good as a defensive player? A former five-star prospect coming out of high school, Cox originally played at Georgia but was dismissed from the program, landing at Florida where he ultimately met a similar fate. Disciplinary issues aside, Cox was fairly productive, logging 15.5 sacks and 35 tackles for loss in 46 college games. As far as undrafted free agents, go, that’s a far sight better than the usual crop of prospects.
Better, yes, but hardly enough to merit what boils down to almost total exclusion from special teams. It’s not like he’s some master pass rusher who must save all his energy for hunting quarterbacks, cool though that would be. So what gives?
I’ll admit, this is a low-stakes question. Even though Cox appears to be climbing in the defensive end rotation, we’re still talking about a guy who’s much closer to the bottom of the roster than the top. But the bottom is where the special teamers live, and if Cox isn’t playing, it’s worth wondering why.
