Three of those players are kickers, if you thought the team was done with its three-way kicking battles.
According to NFL reporter Aaron Wilson , the Green Bay Packers worked out the following players in the off days between Family Night and their next training camp practice: defensive lineman Andre Carter, cornerback Don Gardner, kicker Jonathan Garibay, kicker James McCourt, defensive lineman Zach Morton, kicker Andre Szmyt and cornerback Josh Valentine-Turner. With the team opening up a roster spot on Monday with the release of quarterback Jacob Eason , it’s a pretty safe bet that at least one of the players the Packers worked out will be added to the team by the start of Tuesday’s practice.
Carter and Morton, the two defensive linemen on this list, were both transfers in their college careers. Carter started off at Western Michigan before jumping up the level of competition to the Big Ten’s Indiana, while Morton began at Syracuse before dropping down to Akron.
Carter is a defensive tackle prospect who weighed in at 285 pounds during the pre-draft process. Most recently, Carter was waived by the Jacksonville Jaguars , where he had signed as an undrafted free agent, on July 31st.
Morton, meanwhile, originally signed as an undrafted free-agent edge defender with the Detroit Lions in 2023. He recently played for the San Antonio Brahmas of the UFL, where he recorded three tackles and a half-sack in the spring league.
The cornerbacks, Gardner and Valentine-Turner, both come from smaller programs. Gardner, who ran a 4.48-second 40-yard dash at his pro day, is from South Dakota State, while Valentine-turner played at FIU after transferring from Iowa after just one season. Gardner played in one NFL regular season game for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in 2022, when he recorded 14 special teams snaps. Valentine-Turner had a cup of coffee with both the Seattle Seahawks and the Ottawa Redblacks of the CFL.
Maybe the biggest news, though, is that the team brought in three different kickers to try out and all have previously been in NFL camps before. Garibay is a Texas Tech product who was briefly a Dallas Cowboy before signing with the Arlington Renegades of the UFL. McCourt has been signed by three different NFL franchises, the Los Angeles Chargers , Las Vegas Raiders and Jaguars, but hasn’t played in a single regular season game. Szmyt, a former unanimous All-American, signed with the Chicago Bears as an undrafted free agent in 2023, but he last played with the St. Louis Battlehawks of the UFL — where he was the league’s field goals leader.
The Packers haven’t hesitated to find work for three kickers throughout spring and summer practices. While Anders Carlson and Greg Joseph have been the primary focus of the placekicking camp battle, Parker White and James Turner have previously been in practice for Green Bay before being churned off the roster. Maybe a third kicker, be it Garibay, McCourt or Szmyt, is going to get their chance to show their stuff.
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