Packer Central

Packers Sign Lineman With 40 Career Starts

The Green Bay Packers made a couple practicea squad moves on Monday, including re-signing a lineman who played for them in 2023 and started for the Patriots in 2024.

Bill Huber

New Packers guard Michael Jordan
New Packers guard Michael Jordan / Eric Canha-Imagn Images
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers re-signed guard Michael Jordan to their practice squad on Monday.

The 26-year-old brings a lot of experience to the practice squad with 40 starts, including 11 this season for the New England Patriots.

Jordan was a fourth-round pick in 2019 out of Ohio State by his hometown team, the Cincinnati Bengals. With the Bengals, Jordan started nine games as a rookie in 2019 and 10 games in 2020.

The Bengals released him at the end of training camp in 2021, and he was claimed off waivers by the Carolina Panthers. He started 10 games for them in 2021 and played in all 17 games in 2022.

Jordan failed to make Carolina’s roster in 2023, and he spent almost the entire season on Green Bay’s practice squad.

He opened this season on New England’s practice squad but wound up starting 11 games before he was released from the active roster on Nov. 29 and released from the practice squad last week.

His first start this season came against the Bengals.

“One of the things that my parents always told me is that life always comes full circle,” Jordan said at the time. “So, I feel like it’s a full-circle moment and certainly a great opportunity.”

According to Pro Football Focus, he allowed three sacks this season.

In 67 career games, Jordan has played 2,820 snaps. All of them were at left guard.

Jordan started all 41 games in his three seasons at Ohio State. In 2016, he became the first true freshman to start on the Buckeyes’ offensive line since the legendary Orlando Pace in 1994. He started at guard as a freshman in 2016 and 2017 before moving to center in 2018.

Jordan will wear No. 70 for the Packers. No, he’s not related to the legendary No. 23.

“It’s definitely hard to live up to those expectations (that come with his name) because I’m terrible at basketball and my name is Michael Jordan, so the kids are going to make fun of me for that,” he said while at OSU. “Growing up with a name like Michael Jordan, everyone expects you to play basketball. And me being tall? Everybody wanted me to play basketball, but I love football.”

At the 2019 Scouting Combine, he measured 6-foot-5 7/8 and 312 pounds. The Packers are listing him at 315 pounds, but it’s a different 315 than in college.

“Every day I tell myself I’m eating for results and not taste,” Jordan told The Athletic before the 2021 season. “Trust me, I hate eating healthy more than anyone. It would be clean carbs like rice, quinoa, pastas. Protein would be chicken or salmon or shrimp. That was it. And vegetables.”

In a corresponding move, the Packers released offensive tackle Spencer Rolland from the practice squad.

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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.