Most Important Packers – 50-54: It’s a Snap

Part 6 of our 90-to-1 countdown of the Green Bay Packers’ roster continues with three late-round draft picks and a challenger at long snapper.

Green Bay Packers linemen Jacob Monk (62) and Rasheed Walker go through drills. / Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers will take a 90-man roster to the field for the first practice of training camp on July 22.

Here is Part 6 of our ranking of the most important players on the Packers’ roster. This isn’t just a listing of the team’s best players. These rankings consider talent, importance of the position, depth at the position, salary and draft history. More than anything, we hope you learn something about each player.

No. 54: LS Peter Bowden

The Packers’ undrafted class included Bowden, the long snapper at Wisconsin the past three years who was given a $5,000 signing bonus. He will challenge the incumbent veteran, Matt Orzech.

“We’ve done a lot of work on him,” special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia said before the start of OTAs. “We like Peter and I thought he did pretty good. He’s got good size, he’s athletic, he can move his feet. He’s working on the velocity of his snap. But I do think he’s going to have a chance and have an opportunity in the future to compete and play in the league.”

Including a swing and a miss on former seventh-round pick Hunter Bradley, the Packers have been searching for a reliable snapper for years. Oddly, they’ve had several but let them get away. The Eagles’ Rick Lovato, the Panthers’ J.J. Jansen, the Buccaneers’ Zach Triner and the 49ers’ Taybor Pepper all spent time with the Packers.

Bowden was a finalist for the Patrick Mannelly Award, which goes to the nation’s top long snapper. Accuracy is the strength to his game; he’ll have to improve his snap velocity.

“This is just a place where I felt like I could really get better as a player,” Bowden told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I felt it was a place where I could compete, but I always feel like I can compete wherever I go.

“I really liked the coaches, and they told me that coming here, if you put in the work, you will get better. To me, that’s really important.”

No. 53: FB Henry Pearson

It’s perhaps fitting that Pearson lands at No. 53. There are 53 spots on the regular-season roster. Will the Packers use one on a fullback?

That had been the role of former third-round pick Josiah Deguara the last four years. Last year, he played 196 snaps in 15 games; his per-game snap rate of 20 percent the lowest of his career. He was a total afterthought in the passing game, not seeing a single target over the final 11 games (including playoffs).

At Appalachian State, Pearson was an all-Sun Belt Conference tight end with 25 receptions for 329 yards and five touchdowns as a senior in 2022. Of the 22 FBS-level tight ends in the draft class with at least 25 receptions, Pearson was No. 1 in yards after the catch per catch, according to Pro Football Focus.

Pearson went undrafted in 2023 and was given a $7,500 signing bonus to join the Packers. They clearly like him; rather than releasing him with an injury settlement following a knee injury last training camp, they kept him through camp and placed him on the practice squad. He wound up playing in two games (11 snaps on offense, 23 on special teams).

While a fullback, Pearson spends his days with John Dunn at the tight ends.

“The more you can do,” Dunn said before OTAs. “And some of these guys are doing stuff that they may never have been asked to do before. And so, it’s not always the scheme part, it’s the physical part, right? How do I do this? What is the technique involved in this? And I think that’s something that he continues to get better at and learns and develops constantly.”

No. 52: OT Travis Glover

With the Senior Bowl and Shrine Game held during the same week, it can be slim pickings when an injury requires a late addition to the roster. That was the case when the Senior Bowl needed another offensive lineman.

Senior Bowl executive director grabbed Glover.

“Glover had a good week at the Hula Bowl and had some really good feedback from scouts around the league. If we were to pull up a guy, this would be a good guy for us,” Nagy told Packer Central.

“He’s a big man, and what I loved about him is he came to Mobile and wasn’t overwhelmed. There wasn’t any anxiety. I mean, the dude came out confident. We threw him right in there and he held up in one-on-one pass-rush stuff against some really good players from the jump.”

A strong performance in Mobile, Ala., helped send Glover to Green Bay, Wis., with a sixth-round draft pick.

Glover started 57 games at Georgia State. At pro day, he measured 6-foot-6 and 317 pounds with 34 3/4-inch arms. While he lacks the desired athleticism – his Relative Athletic Score was 4.72 – Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said: “He’s an exceptionally talented kid and all of his best football’s in front of him.”

Glover spent the offseason practices at right tackle.

“I think my strength is probably just my hands,” he said. “I try to be violent when I play and really timing in my strikes is something that I’ve been trying to work on. It’s one thing to just be trying to throw haymakers, but in my training, just working on throwing fast strikes like a snake.”

No. 51: C/G Jacob Monk

With Josh Myers entering his final season under contract, the Packers needed to draft a moldable center. They did that with Monk in the fifth round.

Monk fits the Packers profile as a versatile blocker. He started 58 games in five seasons at Duke: 36 games at right guard, 12 at right tackle and 10 at center. During his final two seasons, he started 13 games at right guard and 10 at center, earning honorable-mention all-ACC both seasons.

Adam Cushing, who is now the offensive line coach and run-game coordinator at Texas A&M, was Monk’s position coach in 2022 and 2023. He raved about Monk’s “man strength,” mentality and versatility.

“This is one of my favorite Jacob Monk stories,” Cushing told Packer Central. “It was the first summer we were there. We weren’t allowed to do full practices, but we had some on-the-field drill work we were able to do. I stayed out maybe for an extra 15-20 minutes talking to one of the other players and then talking to some coaches.

“I’m walking back up to my office and I walk past the O-line room and Jacob Monk is at the board teaching the offense to the freshmen. We had just done it and, I’m not kidding you, I didn’t ask him to do it, nobody asked him to do it. He’s just a natural leader and he cares about others in one of the most genuine ways you’ll ever see. That right there would encapsulate who Jacob Monk is. He genuinely wants to encourage other people to be great.”

Monk worked his way into becoming a center prospect. Duke’s coaches told him he’d be moving to center at the start of camp in 2022. Snapping the ball was a challenge. So, after 10:30 p.m. bed check, he’d sneak out and knock on the door of quarterback Riley Leonard.

“I know those nights he wanted to go to sleep, he wanted to watch film or something,” Monk said, “but I was, ‘Can you please do this with me?’”

No. 50: S Kitan Oladapo

What an offseason for the Packers, who jettisoned last year’s top safeties, Darnell Savage, Jonathan Owens and Rudy Ford, and replaced them with Xavier McKinney in free agency and Javon Bullard, Evan Williams and Oladapo in the draft.

A walk-on at Oregon State, Oladapo was a fifth-round pick after being a three-time all-Pac-12 selection. He had two interceptions and 10 passes defensed as a fifth-year senior.

“He’s a big man that can move,” said his college position coach, Blue Adams, who played special teams for Rich Bisaccia while with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “You are talking about a guy that can change direction and that can accelerate and has good speed. He has an appetite for the physical demands of the game. He is all about that.”

Oladapo suffered a broken toe during the Scouting Combine. That he couldn’t practice during the offseason will put him behind the 8-ball a bit.

“We had the chance to have him in the building, got to know him and I think just his mental awareness and his intelligence, his football IQ will help him stay engaged,” Packers defensive backs coach Ryan Downard said.

“As we can move him around more, the walk-throughs are going to become vital because these guys, you teach them what you can but until you go out and do it and walk through it, that’s to me where the real learning takes place. You can sit in a classroom and learn something but until you either have to teach it back or you take them out there physically let them walk through it, that’s I think where the growth takes place.”

Oladapo grew up a Packers fan.

“I loved Aaron Rodgers growing up,” he said. “I did like Brett Favre, you know, Jordy Nelson, Clay Matthews. That was fun. I was 84, so I did like Sterling Sharpe when I was little.” 

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