The pads are coming on Monday in Green Bay, and that means the real fun begins. The Packers are set for their first padded practice of training camp, and the tempo is about to get cranked way up.
One guy who eats that kind of physicality for breakfast is tight end Tucker Kraft. The veteran playmaker is a wrecking ball at 6-foot-5 and 259 pounds—he loves contact, isn’t afraid to dish it out, and definitely lets folks hear about it after the play.
That nasty edge is part of why he broke out last season, and it’s got the Packers feeling real good about him going into 2025. Kraft was a third-round pick in 2023 and didn’t exactly come out of the gate flying. He put up just 31 catches for 355 yards and a couple of scores as a rookie.
Most of the early shine went to Luke Musgrave, who held down the starting job for most of the year—until injuries got in the way in the following season. When Musgrave went down, Kraft stepped up in a big way. He caught 50 balls for 707 yards and found the end zone seven times in 2024.
That 1-2 punch of Kraft and Musgrave at tight end is why the Packers didn’t even blink when it came time to let Robert Tonyan and Marcedes Lewis walk after 2022. Green Bay flipped the page, and the Tonyan era ended just like that.
Since then, it’s been a bit of a tumble for Tonyan. He landed in Chicago in 2023, played in all 17 games, but didn’t do much. Then he jumped to the Vikings in 2024 to complete his NFC North tour, but only suited up for five games.
Former Packers TE Robert Tonyan is Destine to Be a Training Camp Cut
Now, he’s trying to catch on with the Kansas City Chiefs—his fourth team in four years.
And let’s be honest: things aren’t looking great. Travis Kelce and Noah Gray are locked in as the Chiefs’ top two tight ends. That’s a legit tandem. Tonyan’s only shot is to sneak in as the TE3—but that’s no gimme.
Kansas City used a fourth-round pick in 2024 on Jared Wiley. It’s hard to see them cutting ties with a mid-round draft pick that quickly. Plus, the Chiefs are digging undrafted free agent Jake Briningstool. He turned heads in minicamp and brings a different kind of juice to the position.
The bottom line is numbers game isn’t doing Tonyan any favors. He’s a known quantity at this point, and Kansas City might be more interested in rolling the dice on younger guys with upside. Packers fans shouldn't be surprised if he’s one of the early cuts in camp.