Green Bay Packers: TJ Slaton Flashing Pass Rush Abilities

In drafting the 6’4″ – 330-pound TJ Slaton, the Green Bay Packers — at least for the time being — knew the type of player that they would be adding to this team.

In this Joe Barry defense, we will likely see Slaton often lined up at the nose tackle position. This will afford Green Bay the ability to move Kenny Clark around more, which should lead to more one-on-one opportunities for him–this, of course, is a good thing.

Slaton’s presence may never truly show up on the stat sheet as a 0 or 1-tech defender, but his teammates will know he’s out there–especially against the run. His job will be to occupy space, take on double-teams, and get as much push into the backfield as he can, all of which will make life easier for his teammates around him.

This is the kind of player that we will see here in Green Bay early on — a primary early-down run defender — but with Slaton’s athleticism — he scored a 7.96 out of 10 on the RAS scale — coupled with that size of his, he has the potential to affect the passing game as well. And so far through the first two weeks of training camp practices, we’ve seen flashes of that.

During his final season at Florida in 2020, Slaton recorded 19 pressures and two sacks, according to PFF ($$). While that’s not a huge amount by any means, given what he was asked to do, that’s not nothing either, and it illustrates that pass rush potential that he has.

With Clark currently out of practice with a groin injury and Kingsley Keke still on the NFI list, during Tuesday’s practice, Slaton was taking plenty of reps with the starting defense, and with that opportunity, he made a few nice plays, as noted by Pete Dougherty of Packers News, who was in attendance.

"“On Tuesday, Slaton’s best play in team drills came on a pass rush against the starting offense when he got decent push and then knocked down Aaron Rodgers’ pass. Slaton also had a pressure on Rodgers on the first play of a red-zone period. In one-on-ones Slaton went 1-1 against starting guard Lucas Patrick.”"

As Slaton uses these practices to continue developing his pass-rushing skill-set, one area of emphasis for him is his hand usage. Any effective pass-rusher is going to have active hands, which helps keep the opposing blocker from engaging and can also set up potential pass-rush moves–something else that Slaton will have to add to his repertoire.

"“He’s (Joe Barry) mostly on me about my hands,” Slaton told reporters on Tuesday. “My hands coming out of my hips–getting vertical on my blocks.”"

Larry McCarren of Packers.com would also take notice of Slaton’s more active hands during a practice last week. Pointing out that he was “starting to use his hands” and also showing a “change of direction.” As McCarren noted, this is only a start, but if Slaton can put all of that together with his size, then “you really have something.”

With all of that said, will Slaton ever become a three-down defender? Maybe not. If all he ever provides this team is help against the run and more freedom to move Clark around, that will be just fine, especially for a fifth-round pick. As I mentioned above, we may not always see his presence on the stat sheet, but his teammates will know he’s there.

But there certainly is pass-rush upside that he possesses, and right now, the Green Bay Packers are trying to help Slaton unlock it. As is the case with any Day 3 selection, I’d keep my expectations low early on and expect to see him on the field mostly against the run. However, he has made a play or two in most practices up to this point, and more recently, those flashes have come against the pass.