Green Bay Packers: Ben Braden Competing for Starting Time
By Paul Bretl
The Green Bay Packers have a litany of players to choose from when it comes to putting together their starting offensive line. Of course, a few of those spots are already accounted for by David Bakhtiari — whenever he returns to action — Elgton Jenkins, Billy Turner, and many presume that rookie Josh Myers will be the starting center.
Competing for that additional spot or two will be Lucas Patrick, Jon Runyan, Simon Stepaniak, Yosh Nijman, Royce Newman, possibly Cole Van Lanen, and Ben Braden. Wait, Ben Braden?
While many of us expected the other names to be in the mix for playing time to varying degrees, Braden’s name is not one that I’ve heard mentioned. Like at all. But when offensive line coach Adam Stenavich met with reporters on Thursday, he had this interesting nugget of information:
"“I’m really excited about Ben and what’s going to happen with him. I think he’s really going to compete for a starting job at guard or tackle.”"
Braden was signed to the Green Bay Packers practice squad in October of last season as a guard. He went undrafted out of Michigan in 2017 and spent most of his career prior to joining the Packers on the New York Jets practice squad.
His experience is limited, appearing in only a few special teams plays with New York during his time there, while last year with Green Bay, he took five total snaps on the offensive line—four running plays and one passing play with four snaps at right tackle and one at right guard. Braden didn’t allow a sack or pressure on that one passing play.
Although listed as a guard with the Packers, Braden played both left tackle and right tackle at Michigan, displaying that positional versatility that Green Bay covets along the offensive line. During those two seasons (2014 and 2016), Braden allowed five sacks and 31 pressures, according to PFF ($$).
Going from being primarily a practice squad player to a potential starter is a huge jump, and once again, sheds some light on just how effective Adam Stenavich has been in Green Bay as the offensive line coach. Despite numerous injuries along the line last season, collectively, this was still the best offensive line unit in football. Now, of course, the players deserve a lot of the credit, but Stenavich does as well.
We knew that there was going to be competition along the offensive line this summer just as there was a year ago, but you can now confidently add Braden to that mix after Stenavich’s comments—which is something that I don’t think many of us — or any of us — expected.