Packer Central

Packers Add Tight End John FitzPatrick From Falcons

The Green Bay Packers signed rugged tight end John FitzPatrick off the Atlanta Falcons’ practice squad on Thursday.

Bill Huber

The Packers have signed John FitzPatrick off the Falcons' practice squad.
The Packers have signed John FitzPatrick off the Falcons' practice squad. / Dale Zanine-Imagn Images
In this story:

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers added a tight end on Thursday, signing John FitzPatrick from the Atlanta Falcons’ practice squad.

Second-year player Luke Musgrave did not play against the Rams on Sunday because of an ankle injury that kept him off the practice field last week. He was limited participation on Wednesday but did not practice on Thursday and is headed to injured reserve.

“We obviously evaluated him coming out of Georgia,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “He’s a bigger, wide body. I heard he’s a great guy. So, we’re excited to get him here.”

If all goes well, FitzPatrick will arrive in Green Bay on Thursday night so he can sign his contract and practice on Friday.

FitzPatrick was a sixth-round pick by the Falcons in 2022. He spent his rookie season on injured reserve and played in nine games last year, with one reception for 12 yards. He played 18 snaps on offense and 83 on special teams.

“Last year [2022] was extremely difficult,” FitzPatrick said upon making the roster last year. “Being on injured reserve all year messes with your confidence. I'm just really appreciative of the people upstairs for knowing the type of player I am (and) for trusting in that, because a lot of teams saw two broken feet going into the draft process and looked the other way.”

At Georgia, he redshirted in 2018 and started 13 games in 38 appearances from 2019 through 2021. He caught 17 passes for 208 yards and one touchdown during his career, including six catches for 83 yards as a senior.

The Falcons’ Web site called him “primarily … an in-line, blocking tight end,” but FitzPatrick didn’t want to pigeon-hole himself into that role.

“Definitely be able to contribute on special teams," FitzPatrick said. "On offense, I like the way coach Rags talks about being positionless. I'm not going to corner myself into any boxes of 'I'm a blocking tight end, a receiving tight end.’

“I can do it all.”

This summer, FitzPatrick caught six passes for 33 yards during the preseason but failed to make the roster.

At Georgia, he played most of his final season with broken bones in both feet. Those surgeries prevented him from competing at the Senior Bowl and Scouting Combine.

“He’s a guy that probably needed surgery about halfway through the year,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “He chose not to have that surgery, he wanted to play out the year, he did that and did a really good job for us.”

He had no regrets about the decision. He went to Georgia to win a national championship, and did so alongside fellow Bulldogs tight ends Brock Bowers and Darnell Washington.

“When I first started running, I felt so slow,” . “I was like gosh, this going to take a second. I was already here. So, going through training camp injured was a difficult process because I didn’t know what was going to happen last August.

“You kind of ride the emotions. You try not to, but that happens sometimes. I tried to get back to where I was. You trust in the process that they laid out. Trusting in their plan. Eventually, the confidence came back.”

FitzPatrick should have no trouble finding a place to live in Green Bay. He graduated from Georgia with a degree in real estate.

“I want to start out in a more general finance role on the investment side of things — possibly investment banking, wealth management,” he told the school athletics site. “And then when I get older I'll go into development, possibly. I've also thought about how I love talking about sports and I love talking to people, so possibly something in sports broadcasting.”

The Packers had three tight ends on the roster with Tucker Kraft, Musgrave and Ben Sims, with veteran Andrew Beck and rookie Messiah Swinson on the practice squad. Beck was elevated to the gameday roster last week for three snaps on offense and five on special teams.

More Green Bay Packers News

Packers-Cardinals game preview | Packers-Cardinals Wednesday injury report | Christian Watson on Romeo Doubs | Xavier McKinney wins NFL award | Robert Rochell returns | Packers-Cardinals: What you need to know | NFC North is best division | On SI NFL Power Rankings | Packers-Cardinals matchups | Packers On SI Consensus Power Rankings | Nobody tackles Tucker Kraft

Published |Modified
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.