To say the least, the Green Bay Packers’ plan of signing Nate Hobbs, paying him like a slot defender and hoping that he could develop into outside cornerback is not exactly working out so far. Just in case
you thought you were hallucinating yesterday’s performance against the Arizona Cardinals, I decided to look at the numbers.
According to NFL Pro, the league’s player tracking service, Hobbs allowed the second-most yards of any outside cornerback in the Week 7 slate. The only player who bested him was Minnesota’s Isaiah Rodgers, who allowed 157 yards in the air on just 25 coverage snaps — woof.
This isn’t just a one-time thing, either. Per NFL Pro, Hobbs is 1 of 49 cornerbacks who have played at least 140 coverage snaps as an outside cornerback in the 2025 regular season. Of those 49, only two players have a worse passer rating allowed than Hobbs’ 138.7: the Dallas Cowboys’ Trevon Diggs and the Los Angeles Rams’ Emmanuel Forbes.
Diggs has been battling injury and was even benched by the Cowboys at one point this year. Meanwhile, Forbes is a player who was outright waived by the Washington Commanders last December. It’s not exactly like Los Angeles is particularly invested in Forbes, who hasn’t made a start with the team since Week 4.
So no matter how you cut it, the Hobbs at outside cornerback experiment isn’t working in Green Bay. If you need another source, Pro Football Focus had Hobbs graded as the team’s second-worst defender in Week 7, only behind rookie defensive end Barryn Sorrell, who at 256 pounds is often having to play defensive tackle in the team’s “Cheetah” packages.
In his time with the Las Vegas Raiders, Hobbs spent more than twice as many snaps in the slot as he did at outside cornerback. Basically, he was a slot defender for three of his four years with the team, with poor results on the outside his one season at the position.
It’s probably time to move Hobbs back to his natural position in the slot and figure something else out on the outside.
