Packers Roll Dice on Former Highly Touted Draft Pick

Brian Gutekunst, Green Bay Packers
Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
The Green Bay Packers are signing veteran offensive guard Mekhi Becton, adding a former first-round pick and Super Bowl champion as they try to stabilize an offensive line battered by injuries and poor protection through the first three weeks of the season.

NFL insider Jordan Schultz reported Monday that sources said the Packers are adding Becton.

“The Super Bowl champion with the Eagles started 14 games last year with the Chargers,” Schultz wrote.

Becton, 27, is listed at 6-foot-7 and 363 pounds. The New York Jets selected him 11th overall in the 2020 draft out of Louisville, where he earned first-team All-ACC honors. He spent his first four NFL seasons in New York, mostly at tackle, before Philadelphia moved him inside to right guard in 2024.

That change revived his career. Becton started 15 regular season games and all four playoff contests for the Eagles, including Super Bowl LIX, when Philadelphia beat Kansas City. He helped open lanes for Saquon Barkley during a 2,000-yard rushing season and graded 16th among guards that year, according to Pro Football Focus.

The Chargers signed him to a two-year, $20 million contract in March 2025. Becton started 14 of 15 games in Los Angeles last season but struggled, finishing with a 35.7 overall PFF grade that ranked 79th among 81 qualified guards. The Chargers released him on March 4, clearing about $9.7 million in salary-cap space.

Becton has appeared in 61 regular-season games with 59 starts and five more playoff starts. He has been a starter in 59 of 61 career regular-season appearances.

The signing comes as Green Bay sits 1-2 after a 35-14 home loss to Atlanta on Thursday night. The Packers visit Tampa Bay on Sunday. Their next chance to get healthy up front arrives after a short week of roster movement.

Green Bay already added veteran guard Laken Tomlinson off the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad over the weekend. Tomlinson, 34, has started 162 of 173 career games and made the Pro Bowl in 2021 with San Francisco. He had not played this season.

The Packers’ line has been in flux since Week 2. Starting right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele tore his patellar tendon against the Jets and is out for the season, the same tendon that ended his 2025 campaign early. Preferred left guard Aaron Banks has been limited by knee and toe injuries and has started only one game. Green Bay has used three different players at left guard in three weeks.

Right guard Jacob Monk, a 2024 fifth-round pick, has started most of the snaps there but left the Falcons game with an undisclosed injury. Backup options have included Donovan Jennings, rookie Jager Burton, Anthony Belton and others pressed into duty as the depth chart thinned.

The results have shown. Jordan Love was hit 15 times in the season-opening loss at Minnesota and 12 more times against Atlanta. ESPN Research listed Green Bay’s pass-block win rate at 16 percent through three games, the lowest by any team over that span since the metric began being tracked in 2017.

The Packers rank last in the league in rushing at 48.7 yards per game while relying on a passing attack that has produced 281.3 yards per contest.

Becton’s size and championship experience give general manager Brian Gutekunst another interior option as the team tries to protect Love and restore a running game. Whether Becton starts immediately or provides veteran depth behind Tomlinson, Banks and Monk will depend on physicals, scheme fit and how quickly he can recapture the form he showed in Philadelphia.

For a Packers team that opened 0-1, squeezed out an overtime win in New York, then absorbed its largest home-opening defeat in years, the offensive line has become the central problem of a 1-2 start. Adding a 363-pound Super Bowl starter is the latest attempt to fix it before the schedule hardens.

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