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247 SPORTS PACKER REPORT
By: Eli Berkovits
Thoughts on the Packers 2026 draft class
Eli Berkovits gives his initial thoughts on the Packers 2026 draft class.
The 2026 NFL Draft is officially behind us, and it’s a bittersweet feeling. We spend months and months preparing for a 72-hour event, and when it’s over, you’re left staring into the abyss of the NFL offseason.
This year’s offseason won’t feel as long thought after what was a home run draft by Brian Gutekunst and his scouting staff.
The team addressed need after need without ever feeling like they had to reach or settle on a player they didn’t love just to fill a specific position.
Last week, I wrote about five things I wanted the Packers to accomplish during this year’s draft – cornerback, pass rush, offensive line, wide receiver, and running back.
While they didn’t get all five of them done, they hit the top three, which were by far the most important, and have already begun addressing wide receiver and running back through undrafted free agent signings.
Starting at the top, the Packers, for the first time in a long time, drafted my number one favorite player in the entire class (that had any realistic chance to be a Packer).
I believe getting cornerback Brandon Cisse in the second round at 52nd overall will turn out to be one of the bigger steals of this entire draft. I had him as my third-highest graded corner in the class and my 25th overall player, so getting him in the back half of the second round is phenomenal value.
Cisse is an athletic freak with a 9.24 RAS score and elite speed running a 4.41 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. He is more than just fast, as he also possesses incredibly rare explosiveness with a 41″ vertical jump and a 10’11” broad jump. Those jumps were in the 97th and 95th percentile amongst cornerbacks.
You can see that rare athleticism all over his college film. He has the versatility to play in man or zone coverage and has absolutely no issue with coming up and defending the run.
He isn’t a perfect tackler yet, but he is more than willing to put his body on the line to bring down a ball carrier, which isn’t something we’ve seen from many cornerbacks in Green Bay lately.
Possibly the most exciting thing about Cisse is the fact that he’s still only 20 years old. There is so much more room for him to develop, get stronger, and master the position. There are players who came into this year’s draft who are 25. Cisse won’t turn 25 until his second contract in the NFL.
Moving onto the third round, Gutekunst showed how badly he wanted this next player by trading up seven spots to select defensive tackle Chris McClellan.
McClellan is an absolute unit with long arms and massive, heavy hands. It’s very difficult to find guys his size who can rush the passer the way he does from the nose tackle position.
McClellan finished the 2025 season with six sacks. Only three defensive tackles in this year’s class had more than him, and they all played at a lower level of competition.
His ability to bull rush interior offensive linemen back into their quarterback’s lap is a thing of beauty. When he gets his 11-inch (97th percentile) hands on the chest of a lineman, it’s game over.
For as powerful as he is, I was very impressed with the way he moved laterally and can win with more than just his bull rush, which will be key once he gets to the NFL.
Any football fan knows that the best ability is availability, and McClellan has been an iron man throughout his college career, playing in all 51 games across four seasons.
Starting the draft by hitting the two biggest positions of need set the Packers up to truly go with the best available player on Day 3, and for the most part, they did just that.
With their first pick of the final day of the draft, Gutekunst got a steal in Penn State edge rusher Dani Dennis-Sutton.
Leading up to the draft, I saw many mocks that had Dennis-Sutton going to the Packers at 84th and even as high as 52nd overall, so to get him at 120th in the fourth round has to be considered the biggest steal of the Packers 2026 draft class.
Dennis-Sutton has been incredibly consistent over the past two seasons with eight and a half sacks in each and 12 (2025) or 13 (2024) tackles for loss.
He isn’t the fastest or twitchiest edge rusher you’ll find, but he simply knows how to get after the quarterback. He has a combined 96 pressures over the past two seasons to go along with 52 quarterback hurries.
I love the intensity that he plays with on every single snap. You can see how much the game means to him. I had the opportunity to interview him at this year’s Senior Bowl, and I couldn’t have been more impressed with him as both a player and a person.
He told me that he spent weeks watching film on the offensive linemen he’d face in Mobile and how excited he was to face the best players in the country: “It’s a challenge, but I’m always up for challenges.”
Final note on Dennis-Sutton: he tied a Penn State school record in 2025 with three blocked punts. As Packers fans, we all know the importance of special teams, and Dennis-Sutton will be bringing his best on every rep.
Gutekunst finally turned his attention to the offensive side of the ball in the fifth round by drafting one of the most Packers-y offensive linemen in the entire class, Jager Burton.
Burton was a four-year starter for Kentucky, lining up at all three spots along the interior of the offensive line, but seemed to have found his home at center in 2025.
Burton’s nickname is “Moose” because he is a gigantic man, and yet he still has very impressive movement skills for a guy his size. His ability to get out of his stance and pull around the tackle is something I know Matt Lafleur will be excited about utilizing.
He didn’t allow a single sack across 457 pass-blocking snaps in 2025 and only committed two penalties on 819 total snaps.
One thing I’ve always looked for when watching interior offensive linemen, especially centers, is their ability to get to the second level, and that’s where Burton really stood out to me. He moves so well and knows how to land blocks in space, which isn’t something you see from many college centers.
We know the Packers value the person just as much as the player, and by all accounts, Burton is a very high-character person. One NFL scout said, “The Kentucky staff said he was the ringleader getting the O-line room together, in and out of the building.”
That’s a Packer if I’ve ever seen one.
Onto the sixth round, where the Packers made their final two picks of the weekend.
We knew this team needed a serious infusion of talent at cornerback, and after taking one with their first pick in the second round, Gutekunst went back to the cornerback well in round six with Alabama’s Domani Jackson.
Jackson was an elite prospect coming out of high school as the second-highest-graded cornerback behind only former Heisman Trophy winner and current Jaguar, Travis Hunter.
The expectations were sky high when he got to USC (he transferred to Alabama in 2024), but unfortunately, things never seemed to materialize the way many thought they would.
While Jackson is an elite athlete with great size and speed, he hasn’t yet been able to put it all together on the field. What stood out to me most was his lack of eye discipline. I like it when a defensive back can read the quarterback, but not at the cost of allowing your assignment to run right past you in coverage.
His best year came in 2024 when he had 52 tackles, two interceptions, and seven pass breakups. The 2025 season wasn’t as memorable, with only 39 tackles, zero interceptions, and just one pass breakup.
Jackson was taken with the 201st pick for a reason, but I still see a lot of potential if he can get the right coaching and be put in the right position.
Cornerback is a very traits-y position, and that is one thing Jackson definitely does not lack. You don’t find many people who can run the way Jackson does at his size.
It will be up to the Packers coaching staff to get him back to the elite high school prospect that he once was.
The Packers were slated to have two seventh round picks, but Brian Gutekunst simply could not wait to make his final selection, so he traded both of those picks to move back into the sixth round to draft Florida kicker, Trey Smack.
First off, Trey Smack is an awesome name, especially for a kicker.
Now let’s get to the actual football analysis.
Smack was arguably the best kicker in college football last year, going 5-6 from 50+ yards and 18-22 overall.
During his three years at Florida, he never registered worse than an 81% on field goal attempts and was a tremendous 100-101 on extra points.
The NFL nowadays is all about the 50+ and even 60+ yard kicks, and that’s why I think the Packers were willing to trade up to select a kicker, which is not something you see very often.
Smack was 10-13 from 50+ during his three years at Florida and hit a 57-yarder at the Shrine Bowl this past spring.
I did some digging and found a clip of him from 2021 hitting field goals from 60 yards out, which must have caught the eye of many NFL front offices.
Drafting kickers isn’t usually something I would be excited about, but the Packers’ kicking woes have haunted this team for far too long. If it takes trading away two late seventh round picks to finally solve it, then so be it. I’m all in.
All in all, the Packers only drafted six players, which is by far the smallest class we’ve seen during the Gutekunst era, and I have no issue with that whatsoever.
They hit almost every need on the roster with players I was higher on than most.
We won’t truly know how to feel about this draft class for at least a couple of years, but as we sit today, I couldn’t be happier with what this team did during the 2026 NFL Draft.
