Packers Positions of Need: Top 10 Offensive Tackles
The Green Bay Packers offense has received stellar play from the offensive tackle tandem of David Bakhtiari and Bryan Bulaga. However, Bulaga is headed toward free agency and Bakhtiari is entering his final season under contract, meaning offensive tackle could be a major need. With that, here is our early look at the top 10 prospects at the position. (Underclassmen are noted with an asterisk.)
Jedrick Wills, Alabama (6-5, 320)*: Wills started the final 28 games of his career at right tackle and earned second-team All-American as a junior in 2019. He also was academic all-district. According to the Crimson Tide’s coaches, he allowed one sack and 3.5 hurries. He had only seven missed assignments in 2019 in clearing the way for a team that finished second in the nation in scoring. Pro Football Focus raved about his tight end-like athleticism.
Wills protected the blind side of left-handed quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. “He’s a physical, aggressive player,” coach Nick Saban said. “I think he’s much more confident in knowing what to do, how to do it, why it’s important to do it that way. His mental errors have gone way down.” Said defensive lineman Raekwon Davis: “He’s improved a lot. He’s good at run blocking. His run-blocking skills are great. Pass rushing, his pass protecting is great, too. So he’s very good at what he does. He’s been helping the team a lot.” The big man once thought of himself as a point guard until he broke his foot as a sophomore at Lafayette High School in Lexington, Ky. “I always was a basketball player. I thought I could be a point guard one day. But everybody was telling me how good I was (at football).”
Tristan Wirfs, Iowa (6-5, 322)*: Wirfs was a two-year starter, mostly at right tackle but with three starts at left tackle during an All-American final season. He was voted the Big Ten’s best offensive lineman. In his final seven games, Wirfs allowed one pressure, according to PFF.
During his final year at Mount Vernon (Iowa) High School, he was an All-America inn football, state champion in wrestling and state champion in the shot put and discus in track and field, including an amazing worst-to-first performance at the state meet. Before becoming the high school star, he had to sit out playground games in grade school. “Yeah, the teachers told me that sometimes I’d have to sit out and everything. They’d always tell me that I didn’t know my own strength. You know, just typical stuff a teacher tells a big kid when he’s playing with littler kids. I was just trying to have fun with my buddies.” He’s always been a nice kid. But not too nice. “It’s kind of funny. My mom doesn’t know a lot about football. I mean, she loves watching and stuff. But she’d always say I had to flip that switch, to get mean during a game. I’d be like ‘Yeah, I know, mom. I know.’” Like many Iowa linemen, success starts in the weight room. “That’s the next step. I have to take that moving weight in the weight room onto the field. That’s what I have been trying to do this spring ball, finish guys more and move guys off the line of scrimmage.” He set strength records at Iowa.
Andrew Thomas, Georgia (6-5, 320)*: Thomas was a Freshman All-American in 2017 and a first-team All-American in his final two seasons. In 2019, he won the SEC’s Jacobs Blocking Trophy as the conference’s best offensive lineman. He was the first Bulldog blocker to win the award in 21 years. According to PFF, he was an elite performer in an elite conference.
A native of Lithonia, Ga., he was coached at Pace Academy by former NFL linebacker Chris Slade. At Pace, Slade gave Thomas an ultimatum: Either play football or play the drums in the band. It was a tough choice. Thomas learned to play the drums at an early age; his father played the drums in the church band where Thomas’ grandfather is a preacher. “He said that day the lightbulb turned on,” Slade said. “That's when it all kind of started for him.” At age 18, he was the youngest starter in the national championship game against Alabama that was played on Jan. 8, 2018. “He’s got arms that stretch a country mile,” guard Ben Cleveland said. In March, he was among a select group of players invited to the NCAA Elite Football Symposium. The symposium, held at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis, provides guidance to elite undergraduates on how to properly prepare for the NFL and transition to life in the league.
Josh Jones, Houston (6-7, 310): Jones was a four-year starter at left tackle for the Cougars. He started 45 games overall and was a second-team all-conference choice as a senior. At the Senior Bowl, he was selected the North team’s offensive lineman of the week by the South’s defensive linemen. PFF’s scoring of the one-on-ones back up that award. “I just get the job done,” Jones said of his pass protection. “This year I let up four pressures… and a half a sack. I’m dominant at it. I take pride in it. If I give up a pressure, if I’m even close to (giving up) a sack, I’m kicking myself in the butt. It’s just pride. I feel like every O-lineman has that pride.”
Jones considered entering the draft last year but elected to come back for his final season. That meant increased leadership opportunities. “You have to make sure you’re always working, because guys are always looking,” Jones said. “Make sure you do the right thing, make sure they see you doing the right thing, so they can do the right thing.” In high school, he was an accomplished basketball player but he got more recruiting attention in football.
Austin Jackson, USC (6-6, 310)*: Jackson was a two-year starter at left tackle and a first-team all-conference pick in 2019.
Jackson did more than protect the quarterback’s blind side. He protected his sister. Before the 2019 season, he donated bone marrow in hopes of healing her from a lifelong illness. Autumn Jackson was diagnosed at birth with a rare blood disorder called diamond-blackfan anemia. People with this condition do not make enough red blood cells to carry oxygen to other cells in their body. “My brother is my best friend. Up until he went off to college, I was with him all the time,” she said. The donation caused him to miss summer workouts but was a small sacrifice. Doctors took a large needle and inserted it into his hipbone via his lower back to extract the marrow in a three-hour procedure. “They say the best match is someone in the family,” Austin said. “Then you have to go through 12 different blood tests. They hope to match in about seven or eight out of 12 tests to be a good donor. But luckily, I was a 12 out of 12.”
His grandfather, Melvin Jackson, played offensive tackle at USC. He was part of the Trojans’ 1974 national championship team and was the team’s lineman of the year in 1975. He was a 12th-round pick by the Packers in 1976 who started 34 games in five NFL seasons.
Jack Driscoll, Auburn (6-5, 296): After starting 20 games at UMass and earning his degree in just three years, Driscoll was a graduate transfer who started 25 more games at right tackle at Auburn.
A native of Madison, Conn., he also played lacrosse. He listens to the Beatles before games. His father, John Driscoll, played on the offensive line for New Hampshire and spent a year with the Buffalo Bills. He went from 205-pound high school sophomore to SEC big man. “I kind of always knew how to teach him the position and how important it was to play other sports,” John said. “He’s played lacrosse, basketball. I had him take taekwondo for half a year just for footwork and balance and all that stuff. He’s prepared for it. He’s a kid who knows what he wants, set some goals and tried to go get them.” Auburn’s quarterback in 2018, Jarrett Stidham, called Driscoll a “freak athlete.” He gained 45 pounds at UMass. “He wasn’t really a gamble for Auburn or anybody else. They knew what they were getting. He hasn’t disappointed,” his high school coach said. “He kind of flew under the radar, but he’s not flying under the radar anymore.”
Matt Peart, Connecticut (6-7, 303): Peart was a four-year starter with 48 career starts at both tackle spots. Lining up at right tackle as a senior, he was first-team all-AAC and first-team all-New England.
Peart was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to the Bronx when he was 4. Football wasn’t part of his plans. “I started taking football seriously my junior year. My high school coach, Joe O'Leary, saw me in the dining hall and said, ‘Hey, kid, what are you playing?’ I was actually going to do dance to get more flexible for basketball. He ended up saying, 'No, you're playing football.' That was pretty much the crux of it. I played football.” At UConn, he played with two head coaches and five offensive coordinators. He could have transferred before his final season but elected to stay at UConn. “I decided to stay because UConn was the major D-I program that took a shot on me. I want to pay dividends back to UConn. They took a shot at me, so I’m going to do everything I can for them.” He was selected for this year’s Senior Bowl. “If you put in perspective everything I've been through, it just shows that my love for football is real. It’s like coming up every single day, grinding and being the same guy every single day. Every single down, I want to give 100 percent effort no matter what it is."
Ezra Cleveland, Boise State (6-6, 310)*: Cleveland was a three-year starter, including first-team all-Mountain West Conference honors at left tackle as a sophomore and junior. He also earned all-academic honors.
“He’s talented, and what I love about Ezra is he has no complacency to him,” Boise State coach Bryan Harsin said. “He wants to keep improving, whatever challenge you throw at him. He does the work — he’s got the talent behind it, he’s got the smarts behind it. And he’s only continuing getting better.” He’s a superb athlete and was 11 pounds at birth despite being born three weeks early and spending 11 days in a hospital because his lungs weren’t fully developed. “I mean, football, obviously, but softball, Xbox, paintball, you name it, he’s going to find a way to be good at it,” senior guard John Molchon said. Added offensive line coach Brad Bedell: “The thing with Ezra, if he loses at something, he’s the kind of guy that is going to go and secretly practice, won’t tell anyone, then all the sudden come back the next time and wipe the floor with everyone.”
Saahdiq Charles, LSU (6-4, 295)*: Charles started 28 games in three seasons, with 26 of those starts coming at left tackle. He was part of an offensive line that won the Joe Moore Award as the top unit in the nation and powered a prolific offense that helped the Tigers win the national championship. While he didn’t earn any personal accolades due to missing six games for a violation of team rules, he was one of the coaches’ top-graded players in wins over Georgia in the SEC title game and Oklahoma in the playoffs.
Charles bounced around after Hurricane Katrina from north Louisiana, Houston, Georgia and Montgomery, Ala., before finally settling in Madison, Miss. They rode out the storm in the hospital where his mom worked. “My dad and I went to go live in the hospital with her because she was forced to work during the hurricane. The storm was flooding the hospital, so we had to go to the upper level and stay there. All of the workers and their families were working there, on the first floor, and they only fed the workers some sandwiches and chips and soda. I remember looking over a ledge and seeing all the people in the flood swimming in the water, but all I can remember is staying in the hospital.” In high school, he was a goalie in soccer – his first sporting love – a champion in track and field. Here’s his recruiting story: “The offensive line coach from LSU (Jeff Grimes, who coached at LSU from 2014-2017) had seen Saahdiq play goalkeeper before and saw how athletic he was, but this time I was going to put him in the field if we got ahead by a large margin. So we were ahead by six or seven goals at half and the LSU coach was there watching. We didn’t have any jerseys big enough to fit him so we found a white T-shirt, put black electric tape for his numbers and put him out there. In the first few minutes of the second half, Saahdiq got the ball around midfield, juked about three guys, dribbled down the field and barely missed scoring a goal. All of his teammates and the fans were going crazy about what great moves Saahdiq had. I looked up at the LSU coach and he was on the phone with Coach O (Ed Orgeron) telling him they had sign him.”
Ben Bartch, Saint John’s (6-5, 308): Bartch went from Division III All-American to the Senior Bowl. “It was really important,” he said of his performance at the prestigious all-star game Mobile, Ala. “One of the main red flags most scouts have on a player like me is the level of competition. They need to see how you are going to do when you go up against the biggest and fastest guys out there. And that's to be expected. You just have to rise to the occasion when you get the chance.”
Bartch played tight end during his first two years at the school. With limited playing time, he moved to left tackle and set the stage for his path to the NFL. To do it, he had to pack on the pounds. That meant seven meals per day and a smooth creation that include eggs, cottage cheese, peanut butter, bananas and milk. Over the course of weight training and conditioning, he’d eat seven meals.
Just eight Saint John’s players have been drafted, and none since offensive lineman Kurt Wachtler in the 15th round of 1974. The last Johnnies player to appear in a regular-season NFL game was running back Rick Bell, who played for the Vikings in 1983. He studied abroad in South Africa during Spring 2019.
