Packer Central

Packers Need Run-Stuffer; Best in NFL Draft Arrested

Mammoth Texas run-stopper T'Vondre Sweat, a 2023 All-American, was arrested for DWI.

Bill Huber

Texas defensive lineman T'Vondre Sweat.
Texas defensive lineman T'Vondre Sweat. / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers have been plagued by porous run defenses for years. One of the top prospects in the NFL Draft, however, might no longer be a consideration for general manager Brian Gutekunst.

On Saturday night, University of Texas defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat was arrested by the Austin (Texas) Police Department on a DWI charge. He was booked on Sunday and faces a Class B misdemeanor, which is punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 and 180 days in jail.

Sweat is free upon posting a $3,000 bond.

At 6-foot-4 1/2 and 368 pounds, Sweat is an enormous man with an enormous amount of talent. He was unblockable at times for the powerhouse Longhorns en route to capturing the Outland Trophy as the nation’s top interior lineman, earning unanimous first-team All-American honors and winning Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year.

As a fifth-year senior, he set career highs with 45 tackles, eight tackles for losses, two sacks, four pass deflections and one blocked kick. He even caught a touchdown pass in the conference championship game.

According to Pro Football Focus, 173 interior defensive linemen in this draft class played at least 150 run-defending snaps. Sweat finished first in run-stop percentage, a metric that essentially measures impact tackles. He ranked 11th with his tackles limiting the play to an average gain of 0.4 yards.

The Packers under coach Matt LaFleur rank last in the NFL in yards allowed per rushing attempt. They allowed a league-worst four games of 200-plus rushing yards in 2023.

At 368 pounds, a player like Sweat typically wouldn’t have been on the Packers’ radars. However, Sweat isn’t your ordinary 368-pounder. As if there’s a normal 368-pounder. He ran his 40-yard dash in 5.27 seconds at the Scouting Combine.

“Don’t sleep on me because I’m a big guy,” Sweat told The Draft Network recently. “A lot of people are misinformed because I’m big. I move incredibly well for my size. They see 365 on the scale and it scares them. It never scared me.

“Don’t get scared because it’s a big number. A lot of people aren’t used to that number. I understand that. I love to showcase what I can do at that size. I’ve been doing this my entire life. I’ve always been the biggest kid on the playground. This is nothing new to me. It doesn’t phase me.”

While he had only a couple of sacks, he ranked fifth among interior defenders in this draft class in pass-rush win rate, according to PFF. With the ability to stuff the run and push the pocket, he was viewed as a second-round prospect.

“Everybody wants to rush the passer. It’s always about that number of sacks on the stat sheet. How are you going to do that if you can’t stop the run? You’re going to have a long afternoon if you can’t stop the run,” he told Melo with a laugh.

It will be interesting to see if Gutekunst adds to his defensive line in this month’s NFL Draft. All five players who played last year are back for 2024, including Pro Bowler Kenny Clark, 2022 first-rounder Devonte Wyatt, 2023 draft picks Colby Wooden and Karl Brooks, and big TJ Slaton.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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