Packers Sign Cornerback to Futures Deal

The undrafted rookie out of Kansas State played four games this season for the Los Angeles Chargers.

Bill Huber | Jan 26, 2022

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers have signed cornerback Kiondre Thomas to a futures deal.

Thomas was an undrafted free agent out of Kansas State in 2021. He spent the first half of training camp with the Cleveland Browns and signed to the Los Angeles Chargers’ practice squad in September. He wound up playing in four games and logging 28 snaps on special teams.

He worked out for the Packers on Monday alongside a receiver who the Packers also signed.

Thomas spent his first three collegiate seasons at Minnesota before transferring to Kansas State for his senior year. He started the final four games of the season and broke up four passes. He had one career interception, which came while at Minnesota in 2019.

At Kansas State’s pro day in March, he measured 5-foot-11 3/4 and 186 pounds with a 4.44 time in the 40-yard dash and a 37 1/2-inch vertical jump.

“Kiondre is strong on the line of scrimmage,” said Kansas State cornerbacks coach/defensive passing game coordinator Van Malone, a former NFL starting cornerback. “He uses his hands well in coverage. He has good overall instincts and has a favorable size/speed ratio. Kiondre was a hard worker and a valued member of our CB unit. We were grateful to have his leadership in the room for the short time that we did.”

By making it to the NFL, he was given a key to the city by the mayor of his hometown of Fort Smith, Ark.

“Of course, I wanted to get drafted because that was a dream come true, but there's a lot of superstars out there that went undrafted, and that just lets me know that I'm going to have this chip on my shoulder and I'm going to have to continue to keep on working to get to where I want,” Thomas told the Times Record. “But that's nothing new to me.”

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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