With Kenny Clark sent to the Dallas Cowboys as part of the compensation for superstar pass rusher Micah Parsons, a wide-open role exists next to Devonte Wyatt in the Packers’ starting lineup. It’s always hard to glean too much from pre-season reps. Teams are often trying to make roster judgements moreso than preparing for the regular season, but if training camp seems to be any indication, it appears that the starting nose tackle job will initially fall to Colby Wooden, though the unoffical depth
chart on the team’s website still has Clark’s old spot vacant, and the depth chart did not break things down by nose tackle and three-technique.
To say this career path is surprising for Wooden is perhaps the understatement of the century. Wooden’s position in the NFL was always up in the air during the draft process, with The Athletic’s Dane Brugler splitting the difference in his annual draft guide, placing him with the defensive tackles, but noting his ability to play as a base down defensive end, 4i, or three-technique.
A three-year starter at Auburn, Wooden was the starting defensive end in former defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding’s four-man front, although most of his snaps came inside the offensive tackle as 4i or three-technique. His production improved each of the last three seasons and he is one of only nine Tigers to
reach 30 career tackles for loss over the last 25 years. Wooden is very active off the ball with the lower-body agility and limb quickness to play in gaps. However, his block destruction is undeveloped and he must do a better job staying on schedule to make a living battling NFL blockers. Wooden isn’t consistently disruptive when rushing from the outside, but he can set the edge or reduce down where his rush skills are more effective on the interior. He offers position flexibility as a rotational base end or three-technique as an NFL rookie capable of ascending to starter.
Wooden showed up to the combine at just 273 pounds, nearly the exact same as Packers defensive end Lukas Van Ness. He then mildly bulked up by his pro day to 278 pounds, but still well short of what you would expect even for a penetrating three-technique (typically north of 290 pounds). We know that last off-season, Wooden bulked up to 290 pounds when the Packers switched from a base 3-4 to a base 4-3. Since there was no 4i/five-technique role for him to play on base down anymore, he changed his body to play the three-technique full-time.
Despite adding the weight for the scheme change, Wooden played an even lesser role in his second season than he did as a rookie, totaling only 260 defensive snaps. The snaps he did play were largely uneventful, as well, with Wooden generating just a 5% pressure rate and being a negative in the run game.
After a disappointing sophomore campaign, many, including yours truly, expected Wooden to be on the chopping block this season. With Wyatt and Karl Brooks occupying the three-technique spots, playing time was going to be hard to come by, and with TJ Slaton leaving in free agency, Green Bay was bound to try and add some more beef to the nose tackle room. The draft did not fall particularly kindly for Green Bay to resolve the beef shortage on the defensive interior, however, and they were only able to snag nose tackle Warren Brinson in the sixth round and his Georgia teammate, Nazir “Big Sleepy” Stackhouse, as a priority undrafted free agent. And then, all of a sudden, Colby Wooden was getting backup nose tackle snaps in camp and in the pre-season.
Now, because the Green Bay Packers website never updates any sort of body measurement, we don’t know how big Colby Wooden is at this point in time. I’d comfortably venture that Wooden is north of 300 pounds at this point, since playing nose tackle at anything short of 305 is almost unheard of, even in an even front where you’re mostly playing the 1-tech rather than a true 0.
Watching back his pre-season film, and it sure still looks like Colby Wooden, albeit with a bit more weight. He still has the quickness where he can force a run stop on occasion. Like here, where he works against the flow of inside zone to stop Isaiah Davis for a short gain.
When a lineman gets his hands on him, though, he’s liable to get washed out, and this particularly became a problem on outside zone, where he was getting dislodged and leaving cutback lanes too often. There are multiple examples of this across the pre-season, some worse than others. This isn’t even the worst offender, but he just seems too easily moved in a lot of cases, even with this rep coming at the three-tech in an under-front.
I do want to highlight a rep, when Green Bay was in an under-front, where he took the center for a walk on one of these.
On the whole, when Wooden was able to win quickly with his hands, his quickness was able to show up. He did have a couple of solid plays of holding his water and generating a stop, like this one.
The pre-season tape was a mixed bag for Wooden. There are too many snaps where he still looks like an undersized defensive tackle trying to win against guards. PFF pre-season grades are going to be the ultimate ‘grain of salt’ for sure, but his 55 overall grade and 52 run defense grade are not encouraging overall. My primary concern with the defense is just that the DT room ends up being too small, since none of Wyatt, Wooden, or Brooks is going to rack up a lot of wins from holding their gaps. Getting washed around could leave a lot of traffic that gets in the way of Quay Walker and Edgerrin Cooper doing what they do best as run-and-chase linebackers. On the plus side, finding run-stuffing nose tackle types around the trade deadline is typically a relatively inexpensive purchase to make. It’s either that, or someone like Warren Brinson better be ready for a lot of game time.
