3 Free Agents Who Can Still Help the Green Bay Packers
By Paul Bretl
Green Bay Packers Free Agent Target: Mitchell Schwartz
The Green Bay Packers’ once deep offensive line unit has now become very thin. David Bakhtiari is still out, Elgton Jenkins is done for the season, and we don’t know when Josh Myers will return.
For the time being, the offensive line will consist of Yosh Nijman, Jon Runyan, Lucas Patrick, Royce Newman, and Billy Turner—a capable group. The first two off the bench will likely be Dennis Kelly and Ben Braden.
According to PFF ($$), as the right tackle for Tennessee last season, Kelly didn’t allow a single sack over the course of the entire season. This year, however, he has had several stints on the injury report, and despite all of the movement along the offensive linemen that has taken place, he has not seen any action. Braden, who was just promoted from the practice squad, has only five career regular-season snaps.
Enter Mitchell Schwartz, who would not come in and be a starter, but he would provide added depth at the tackle position — something that you can never have too much of — and an additional option for Green Bay off the bench.
Schwartz 2020 season was cut short due to a back injury, something to certainly be aware of, but before that, the former All-Pro had never missed a game during his NFL career, which began back in 2012. And during that span, he had regularly graded out as one of the better offensive tackles in football by PFF.
To put it simply, Schwartz has been the model of consistency at the tackle position for nearly a decade.
At this point in his career and coming off an injury, expectations shouldn’t be that Schwartz is the player that he once was — and perhaps he may want to retire instead of continue playing — but if the Green Bay Packers are looking to bolster their offensive line depth with experience and someone who played the game at a high level for a long time, then there really isn’t a better option out there.