Which Inside Linebackers Might Be Off Packers’ NFL Draft Board?

Whether it’s looking for a new starter to pair with De’Vondre Campbell or better depth, an athletic group of inside linebackers await the Green Bay Packers.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – With the return of All-Pro De’Vondre Campbell and productive Krys Barnes, the Green Bay Packers’ starting linebacker duo is back.

Would general manager Brian Gutekunst use a premium draft pick in hopes of forming a super-tandem with Campbell? Or just a late-round pick to challenge Ty Summers and Isaiah McDuffie for depth?

Since the move to the 3-4 scheme in 2009, Green Bay has drafted nine off-the-ball linebackers.

While it might not seem like it, the Packers value athleticism at this spot. The historic Scouting Combine averages are 4.72 in the 40, 4.30 in the 20-yard shuttle and 7.13 in the three-cone drill.

The last five linebacker picks who went through testing – Jake Ryan (4.65 in 2015), Blake Martinez (4.71 in 2016), Oren Burks (4.59 in 2018), Summers (4.51 in 2019) and Isaiah McDuffie (4.61 in 2021) – all beat the historic 40 time. (Kamal Martin, a fifth-round pick in 2020, didn’t test following knee surgery.) It’s six in a row if you go with Sam Barrington’s pro day (4.69) instead of Combine (4.91) in 2013.

The shuttle typically is a key test. Five in a row soundly beat the historic average – Barrington, 4.25; Ryan, 4.20; Martinez, 4.20; Burks, 4.15; Summers, 4.26 – but McDuffie posted a 4.39.

Prior to those six linebackers, Green Bay used a fifth-round pick on North Carolina State’s lanky Terrell Manning in 2012. He ran his 40 in 4.79, his shuttle in 4.43 and his three-cone in 7.18. He failed to make an impact.

A year earlier, Green Bay used a sixth-round pick on Appalachian State’s D.J. Smith. Talk about a rule-breaker. The Packers don’t draft short players at any position. Well, Smith was 5-foot-10 5/8. He ran his 40 in 4.88, his shuttle in 4.45 and his three-cone in 7.35. In this case, Green Bay went with film over measureables. Smith started three games as a rookie and all six games in 2012 before a season-ending knee injury. He never played another game with Green Bay and only two more games overall.

In chronological order, their Relative Athletic Scores: McDuffie, 7.73; Summers, 9.71; Burks, 9.73; Martinez, 6.42; Ryan, 8.54; Barrington, 4.13 (but 7.84 with his pro-day 40); Manning, 3.46; Smith, 0.44.

Based on the long-term draft history and the athleticism in this class, just about everybody in the draft class is in play.

In the 40, only a few late-round options – Wisconsin’s Jack Sanborn (4.73), Florida’s Jeremiah Moon (4.76), Michigan’s Josh Ross (4.79) and Colorado’s Nate Landman (4.86) – were slower than the historic average.

North Carolina’s Jeremiah Gemmel’s three-cone time was a hideous 7.53, and Georgia’s Channing Tindall’s 7.25 was 0.12 slower than the historic average. Tindall, though, destroyed the rest of his workout with a 4.47 in the 40, 4.18 in the shuttle and a 42-inch vertical.

In the shuttle, Texas A&M’s Aaron Hansford (4.40) and Kansas’ Kyron Johnson (4.38) were the only draft-worthy prospects who were significantly slower than the historic average. Johnson ran a blistering 4.40 in the 40, though.

With so few bad testing numbers, no draft-worthy linebackers were knocked out by poor RAS. In fact, as was the case at outside linebacker, this was a position where the pre-Combine rankings were only amplified by their testing results.

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