The disaster that currently is the Green Bay Packers offensive line is the result of various problems combining to create one big mess.
Green Bay’s coaching staff must take a portion of the blame, and injuries have not helped matters, but perhaps the biggest issue facing the offensive line is a severe lack of experience, and the responsibility for that lies at the door of the general manager Brian Gutekunst.
Entering Week 1, the starting offensive line had a combined NFL snap total of only 6,589. In the three previous seasons, the starters for the season opener had not had a combined lower snap count than 10,253, and the average was 14,045.
By the time Thursday night’s loss to the Falcons rolled around, the starting five of Jordan Morgan, Jager
Burton, Sean Rhyan, Jacob Monk and Anthony Belton had only 4,216 career snaps between them.
The situation has obviously not been helped by Green Bay’s two most experienced linemen, Zach Bako-Bewele and Aaron Banks, both already having injuries, with Bako-Bewele out for the year and Banks battling toe and knee issues.
However, that cannot be used as an excuse for the approach the front office took this offseason, because both of those players were injured last year, too.
Bako-Bewele was coming off a serious injury – a partially torn patellar, which he has now torn completely – and Banks has struggled with injuries not only last season but before coming to Green Bay.
Of course the Packers would have been hopeful the duo would have better luck on the health front this year, and right at the start of training camp they seemed to be on the right track, but the summer did not go smoothly and the status of both players was uncertain entering the regular season.
Whether it was in training camp or during the offseason, Gutekunst could have done more to insure the O-line against this kind of catastrophe where both Bako-Bewele and Banks missed time again.
Even if they were both in the lineup in Week 1, the combined snap count of the starting five would only have been 10,368, and the other problem is that the level of inexperience of some of the players on the line is on another level compared to previous seasons.
Back in 2023, the most inexperienced starter entering the season was Bako-Bewele, who had 489 snaps under his belt and had a 68.3 PFF grade on those snaps. Everyone else had at least 1,440.
In 2024, Sean Rhyan was the floor with only 229 snaps of experience entering the year, and only a 49.3 grade, but he had been on the team for two years. Rasheed Walker had already had 974 snaps from his one year as a starter with a 66.3 grade.
Entering 2025, Rhyan was still the least experienced on the line with 1,256 snaps prior to that season.
This year, Monk and Donovan Jennings started in Week 1 with a combined 63 snaps between them. They had really done nothing to give anyone confidence they were good enough to start an NFL game, and so far they haven’t been.
Morgan had 51 snaps at left tackle in the NFL before being handed the starting job this season. As much as a two-year ramp up period and his first-round pedigree were reasons to believe he could succeed, he is clearly still finding his feet and perhaps that should have been expected.
The truth is, there were too many ‘ifs’ on this line entering the season, and while the Packers can blame injuries to an extent, Gutekunst did not provide the coaches with enough sure things, or even insurance in case injuries hit or players they were relying on for improvement did not develop.
Now he is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube, signing Laken Tomlinson, who has nearly 11,000 NFL snaps of experience by himself, having already added Cordell Volson to their practice squad recently, who has almost 3,400 snaps in the league.
Those players were not on the active rosters of other teams for a reason, and they may not solve the lack of quality on Green Bay’s O-line, but at least they are more likely to actually execute their assignment if they get on the field.
Experience matters on the offensive line, and the dearth of it in Green Bay is arguably the most problematic element among the concoction of issues the group has. The only question now is whether it is too late to fix it.
This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: Packers’ biggest offensive line problem is lack of experience
